James B. Loken

James Burton Loken (born May 21, 1940) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was appointed in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush, and served as the Eighth Circuit's chief judge from 2003 to 2010.

Early life and education Loken earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1962 and his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1965. After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Edward Lumbard of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1965 to 1966 and for Justice Byron White of the United States Supreme Court from 1966 to 1967. He is married to Caroline Loken.

Professional career Loken was in private practice in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1967 to 1970. He was General Counsel to the President's Committee on Consumer Interests in 1970 and a staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon from 1970 to 1972. Loken returned to private practice in Minneapolis from 1973 to 1990 at the white shoe law firm of Faegre & Benson.

In November 2022, Loken wrote for a three-judge panel upholding an immigration judge's finding that an asylum applicant who had allegedly been brutally raped by military officers in her home country, Cameroon, was not credible because she did not provide medical records from the government hospital that attended to her injuries.