John R. Tunheim was nominated by President William Clinton and took the oath of office on December 29, 1995. He succeeded Judge Donald D. Alsop, who took senior status. Judge Tunheim was born in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, on September 30, 1953, and raised in Newfolden, Minnesota.  He graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1975 and served as a staff assistant to U. S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. In 1980, he graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School where he served as President of the Minnesota Law Review.

Judge Tunheim served one year as a law clerk to Judge Earl Larson and worked in private practice at the St. Paul law firm of Oppenheimer, Wolff and Donnelly. In 1986, after serving for two years as the state's Solicitor General, he was appointed Minnesota Chief Deputy Attorney General and served until his appointment to the federal bench.

From 1994-1998, he was appointed by President Clinton and served as the Chair of the U.S. Assassination Records Review Board, an independent federal agency in charge of declassifying the government records of the Kennedy assassination.  For his work in opening government records, he received the 1999 James Madison Award from the Coalition on Government Information. He currently serves as Vice President of the Norwegian American Historical Association and on the Board of the American judicature Society, the Federal Judges Association, the University of Minnesota Law Alumni Association, and the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. He is a member of the Douglas K. Amdahl Inn of Court.  He also serves on the United States Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management.

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