Arvo Mikkanen

Arvo Quoetone Mikkanen (born April 1961) is an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma and a former federal judicial nominee for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. He has been a judicial law clerk, civil practitioner, judge, tribal prosecutor, law professor, and federal criminal prosecutor during his legal career which began in 1986. Mikkanen is a lecturer and frequent instructor in federal criminal investigations, prosecution issues and Indian affairs law. and was the Class Marshal for the Class of 1986 at the Yale Law School and while at Yale received the Beinecke Award in 1986. After graduating law school, Mikkanen served as a law clerk for Judge Lawrence S. Margolis of the United States Claims Court, and followed that with a clerkship for Judge Robert M. Parker of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Mikkanen was recommended for the judgeship on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma by Democratic Governor Brad Henry. On February 2, 2011, President Barack Obama formally nominated Mikkanen to a seat on the Northern District of Oklahoma that had been vacated by Judge Terence C. Kern, who had taken senior status in January 2010. Mikkanen's nomination was immediately met with opposition from members of Oklahoma's congressional delegation, with Republican Senators Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn and Democratic Representative Dan Boren expressing disappointment that they were not consulted on the nomination. However, an official in Obama White House speaking off the record disputed that they did consult with the Oklahoma congressional delegation. His nomination was returned to the President on December 17, 2011, pursuant to the rules of the Senate, and Obama did not renominate Mikkanen to the judgeship.