John R. Tunheim

John Raymond Tunheim (born 1953) is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Education and early career

Tunheim was born in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, in 1953. Tunheim interned for then Senator Hubert Humphrey while in college, and worked as a Minnesota field representative after graduating. He then worked in private practice for the law firm Oppenheimer, Wolff, Foster, Shepard and Donnelly from 1981 to 1984.

In 1994, Tunheim served as an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. Tunheim was interviewed for the 2021 documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. In 2025 he testified at the second hearing of the House Oversight Committee's "Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets".

Tunheim has worked with more than a dozen foreign countries to form and revise their constitutions, laws, and court systems. These efforts include the revision of judicial practices to improve human rights in Uzbekistan, restructuring Kosovo's judiciary and constitution, and training judges in Georgia.

Federal judicial service On July 10, 1995, President Bill Clinton nominated Tunheim to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota vacated by Donald Alsop. The Senate confirmed his appointment on December 22, 1995, and Tunheim received his commission on December 26. He served on the federal Committee on Court Administration and Case Management from 2000 to 2005, and chaired the committee from 2005 to 2009. Tunheim served as chief judge from July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2022, and assumed senior status on December 1, 2023. On October 7, 2014, Tunheim sentenced the leader of the Native Mob, Wakinyon "Killa" Wakan Mcarthur, to 43 years in prison on several charges, including conspiracy to participate in racketeering activity and distribution of a controlled substance. During sentencing, Tunheim told Heinrich that the crime went beyond the child pornography charges to which he pleaded guilty, saying, "you stole the innocence of children in small towns, in the cities of Minnesota and beyond." Tunheim sentenced Heinrich to 20 years in prison. Under Operation PARRIS, the Department of Homeland Security focused on refugees who entered the country legally but were not yet legal residents. This ruling also ordered updated information regarding the release of detained refugees and granted discovery rights to the plaintiffs. They met in 1976, when Kathryn was volunteering for Senator Hubert Humphrey's election campaign, and married in 1977. They have two children.

Awards Tunheim has received awards from the National Association of Attorneys General, including the President's Distinguished Service Award in 1988 and the Marvin Award in 1991. From the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs he received a Mondale Fellowship from 1992 to 1993 and the Outstanding Achievement Award in 2010. He was noted as a Rising Star Lawyer by the Minnesota Journal of Law & Politics in 1993.