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Criminal and civil law, the constitutional law, the assassination of President Kennedy
Judge John R. Tunheim has served for more than 11 years as a United States District Judge since taking his oath of office on December 29, 1995. One of seven district court judges in the District of Minnesota, he handles both criminal and civil trials for which the federal courts have jurisdiction. He also occasionally hears cases in Duluth, St. Paul, and Fergus Falls.
Tunheim served as chairman of the U.S. Assassination Records Review Board, an independent federal agency responsible for reviewing and facilitating public disclosure of previously classified government records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The review board completed its very successful work on September 30, 1998, presenting its Final Report to President Clinton and establishing a legacy of more than four million pages of materials concerning the assassination now available to the public at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.
Prior to his appointment as a federal judge, Tunheim served for nine years as chief deputy attorney general in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. As the senior appointed official in Attorney General Skip Humphrey’s Office, he was responsible for supervising and directing all operations of the office. Among his duties were the supervision of all legal services, including both criminal and civil litigation, the recruitment and supervision of the office’s lawyers, chairing the management team, representing the governor and other top state officials, working with the legislature, and handling significant constitutional cases. He also served as Minnesota solicitor general and manager of the Attorney General’s Public Affairs Litigation Division from 1984 to 1986.
Tunheim spent three years in private litigation practice with the law firm, Oppenheimer, Wolff, Foster, Shepard, and Donnelly from 1981 to 1984 and served as law clerk to Senior U.S. District Judge Earl Larson in Minneapolis from 1980 to 1981. From 1975 to 1978 he served as a staff assistant to U.S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey.
Tunheim is a summa cum laude graduate of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota and a 1980 cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School where he served as president of the Minnesota Law Review. The Minnesota Law Review honored Judge Tunheim in 2006 with its Distinguished Alumni Award for extraordinary contributions to the profession and to society.
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