Amul Roger Thapar (born April 29, 1969) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of ...

. He is a former United States district judge of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky (in case citations, E.D. Ky.) is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises approximately the Eastern half of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The United States Co ...

and former

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...

for the Eastern District of Kentucky. He was also President Trump's first Court of Appeals appointment and Trump's second judicial appointment after Justice

Neil Gorsuch Neil McGill Gorsuch ( ; born August 29, 1967) is an American lawyer and judge who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017, and has served since ...

. Thapar was discussed as a candidate for the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

Early life and education

Amul Thapar was born in

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Ç ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

to a family who immigrated from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. He was raised in

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Ohio, Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnat ...

, where his father, Raj Thapar, owns a heating and air-conditioning supply business. Thapar worked for his father's business driving the truck. His mother, Veena Bhalla, owned a restaurant. She sold her successful business after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

and chose to serve as a civilian clinical social worker assigned to assist veterans. After graduating from high school in 1987, Thapar attended

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classified ...

, graduating in 1991 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree. He attended

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

Moritz College of Law The Michael E. Moritz College of Law is the professional graduate law school of the Ohio State University, a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1891, the school is located in Drinko Hall on the main campus of the ...

for one year, then transferred to the

UC Berkeley School of Law The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...

, graduating in 1994 with a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice l ...

degree.

Career

Private practice

After law school, Thapar served as a

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

to judge S. Arthur Spiegel of the

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio The United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (in case citations, S.D. Ohio) is one of two United States district courts in Ohio and includes forty-eight of the state's eighty-eight counties–everything from the Columbus a ...

from 1994 to 1996, and then to judge

Nathaniel R. Jones Nathaniel Raphael Jones (May 12, 1926 – January 26, 2020) was an American attorney, judge, and law professor. As general counsel of the NAACP, Jones fought to end school segregation, including in the northern United States. From 1979 until 1995 ...

of the Sixth Circuit from 1996 to 1997. He was an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law from 1995 to 1997 and from 2002 to 2006. Thapar was then an attorney at the law firm of

Williams & Connolly Williams & Connolly LLP is an American law firm based in Washington, D.C. The firm was founded by trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams in collaboration with Paul Connolly, a former student of his. Williams left the partnership of D.C. firm Hog ...

in Washington, D.C. from 1997 to 1999 where he volunteered to represent the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty pro bono. In addition to being a practicing trial attorney, Thapar was also a trial advocacy instructor at the

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

from 1999 to 2000. He was an

Assistant United States Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal go ...

for the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle (Washington, D.C.), Logan Circle, Jefferson Memoria ...

from 1999 to 2000. He was general counsel to Equalfooting.com from 2000 to 2001. He returned to private practice at the Squire, Sanders & Dempsey firm in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

from 2001 to 2002 before entering a life of public service.

United States Attorney

Thapar returned to the U.S. Attorney's Office as an

for the Southern District of Ohio from 2002 to 2006. He was then nominated and confirmed to the position of

for the Eastern District of Kentucky, where he served from 2006 to 2007. While an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he was appointed to the Attorney General's Advisory Committee (AGAC) and chaired the AGAC's Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on its Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, Violent Crime subcommittee, and Child Exploitation working group. Thapar also led the Southern Ohio Mortgage Fraud Task Force, which successfully prosecuted approximately 40 perpetrators of

mortgage fraud Mortgage fraud refers to an intentional misstatement, misrepresentation, or omission of information relied upon by an underwriter or lender to fund, purchase, or insure a loan secured by real property. Criminal offenses may be prosecuted in eith ...

. He led the successful investigation and prosecution of a conspiracy ring to provide illegal aliens with fraudulent

driver's license A driver's license is a legal authorization, or the official document confirming such an authorization, for a specific individual to operate one or more types of motorized vehicles—such as motorcycles, cars, trucks, or buses—on a publi ...

Federal judicial service

Service as district court judge

On May 24, 2007, President George W. Bush nominated Thapar to the

seat vacated by judge

Joseph Martin Hood Joseph Martin Hood (born 1942) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Education and career Born in Ashland, Kentucky, Hood received a Bachelor of Science degree from ...

. The

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

rated Thapar ''Unanimously Well Qualified,'' with one committee member abstaining. Thapar was confirmed by the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

on December 13, 2007 and received his commission on January 4, 2008. According to the Trump administration, that appointment made Thapar the first

United States federal judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S ...

of South Asian descent. His service on the district court terminated on May 30, 2017, upon elevation to the

. Thapar began his career "First in Ohio as a line prosecutor pursuing drug dealers, gang members, and terrorist financiers. Then in Kentucky as a U.S. attorney and a trial judge known for his work ethic, writing, and teaching: he covered 3 far-flung courthouses in his own district (Covington, London, and Pikeville), volunteered to hear additional cases in Texas and on the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits, wrote award–winning opinions, and lectured regularly at UVA, Vanderbilt, Yale, Harvard, and other top schools." As a district court judge, Thapar heard cases in Covington,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

outside of Cincinnati, as well as in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and Pikeville. While on the bench, Thapar has served as an adjunct professor at

Vanderbilt University Law School Vanderbilt University Law School (also known as Vanderbilt Law School or VLS) is a graduate school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874, it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law School has consis ...

University of Virginia School of Law The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law or UVA Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as part of his "academical v ...

, and

Northern Kentucky University Northern Kentucky University is a public university in Highland Heights, Kentucky. It is primarily an undergraduate institution with over 14,000 students; over 12,000 are undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 are graduate students. Northern ...

. He has been an invited guest at

Federalist Society The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (abbreviated as FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquarter ...

programs. Thapar is known for his folksy and engaging writing style that is meant to be understood by everyday people. In an opinion about amount in controversy requirements holding that the amount was "exactly one penny short of the jurisdictional minimum of the federal courts" (''Freeland v. Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co.'', 632 F.3d 250, 252 (6th Cir. 2011)), Thapar wrote about the humble penny, which "tend to sit at the bottom of change jars or vanish into the cracks between couch cushions." In another case, Thapar explained that if the owner of a bar "promised to pour man a glass of Pappy Van Winkle" – a rare high-end bourbon – "but gave him a slug of Old Crow much lower-priced bourboninstead, well, that would be fraud."

Notable cases as a district court judge

*In 2013, Thapar was assigned to a case in the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee (in case citations, E.D. Tenn.) is the federal court in the Sixth Circuit whose jurisdiction covers most of East Tennessee and a portion of Middle Tennessee. The court has ju ...

due to the impending retirement of Judge Thomas Phillips from the Knoxville court. The case involved a high-profile break-in by peace protesters at the

Y-12 National Security Complex The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was built as part of the Manhattan P ...

's Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility in July 2012. The three protesters, aged 57 to 82, were convicted. *On May 10, 2013, Thapar cited the definition of the federal crime of terrorism to keep the protesters in jail until their sentencing on February 18, 2014. Thapar sentenced one of the defendants, 84-year-old nun Megan Rice, to 35 months in prison for breaking into the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and using blood to deface a bunker holding bomb-grade

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

, a demonstration that exposed serious security flaws; Rice had asked not to receive leniency and said she would be honored to receive a life sentence. The two other defendants were sentenced to more than five years in prison, in part because they had much longer criminal histories. The activists' attorneys asked the judge to sentence them to time they had already served, about nine months, because of their record of goodwill. Thapar said he was concerned they showed no remorse and he wanted the punishment to be a deterrent for other activists. *On appeal, the Sixth Circuit reversed the most serious convictions against the protesters and, in May 2015, ordered their immediate release from custody, noting that the protesters' sentencing guidelines now recommended substantially less time in custody than they had already served.

Court of appeals service

On March 21, 2017, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

nominated Thapar to the

. Thapar received a unanimous ''well qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association. On April 26, 2017, the

United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations ...

held a hearing on his nomination. On May 18, 2017, his nomination was reported to the floor of the Senate by an 11–8 vote with one Democrat not voting. On May 24, 2017, the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

invoked cloture on his nomination by a 52–48 vote. On May 25, 2017, his nomination was confirmed by a 52–44 vote. He received his commission on the same day. Thapar became the second

Indian American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

judge of

United States courts of appeals The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals f ...

. The ''

Lexington Herald-Leader The ''Lexington Herald-Leader'' is a newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and based in Lexington, Kentucky. According to the ''1999 Editor & Publisher International Yearbook'', the paid circulation of the ''Herald-Leader'' is the second larg ...

'' reported when Thapar was nominated to the 6th Circuit that "lawyers across the political spectrum praised imas a highly intellectual, thoughtful and hard-working judge." Thapar also speaks at law schools across the country on originalism,

textualism Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, th ...

, civility, and other topics. He teaches at the University of Virginia Law School on the judicial philosophies of Justices Scalia and Thomas. In 2018, Thapar published a law review article about the role of judges. He criticized "pragmatic" judging and argued that judges should not be "politicians in robes."

Consideration for the Supreme Court

Judge Thapar was first considered for the Supreme Court in 2016, when he was a Federal District Judge. He has been considered a front-runner for an open seat since then. Thapar was included in a list of individuals that Republican presidential candidate

"would consider as potential replacements for Justice Scalia at the United States Supreme Court." After the June 2018 announcement by sitting Justice

Anthony Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Presid ...

that he would retire from the court, Thapar remained on a Trump "short-list." Thapar was one of six judges interviewed by President Trump early in July while being considered to fill the Kennedy vacancy, which was ultimately filled by the appointment of

Brett Kavanaugh Brett Michael Kavanaugh ( ; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since O ...

Personal life

Thapar married Kim Schulte, a Kentucky real estate agent, and converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. The couple reside in

Covington, Kentucky Covington is a home rule-class city in Kenton County, Kentucky, United States, located at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking Rivers. Cincinnati, Ohio, lies to its immediate north across the Ohio and Newport, to its east across the Licking ...

with their three children. Thapar engages in his community through volunteer work. At his confirmation hearing, Senator

Mitch McConnell Addison Mitchell McConnell III (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky and the Senate minority leader since 2021. Currently in his seventh term, McCon ...

noted that Thapar had "founded a brand-new chapter of the well-respected Street Law program, which sends law school students into underprivileged high schools to teach the basic underpinnings of our legal system."

References

External links

* *
Biography at University of Virginia School of Law

Biography at Northern Kentucky (archived)

United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Official Website

Knoxville News Sentinel article, 5/11/2013

Questionnaire for Judicial Nominees
for the

Contributor profile
from the

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Thapar, Amul 1969 births Living people 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American judges American jurists of Indian descent American Roman Catholics Assistant United States Attorneys Boston College alumni Converts to Roman Catholicism from Hinduism Federalist Society members George W. Bush administration personnel Georgetown University Law Center faculty Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky Kentucky lawyers People from Covington, Kentucky People from Toledo, Ohio United States Attorneys for the Eastern District of Kentucky United States court of appeals judges appointed by Donald Trump United States district court judges appointed by George W. Bush University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Cincinnati College of Law faculty University of Virginia School of Law faculty Williams & Connolly people Asian conservatism in the United States