Judge Gretchen Lund – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana

Longtime Elkhart County Judge Gretchen Lund is the Republican-half of a package deal struck between the White House and Indiana Senators for the Northern District of Indiana.

Background

A native Hoosier, Lund was born in 1975, and grew up in the Goshen city area, graduating from NorthWood High School in 1994. After getting an B.A. from Butler University in 1998, Lund attended Valparaiso University School of Law, graduating in 2001. Following her graduation, Lund joined the Indianapolis office of law firm Ice Miller LLP before leaving a year later to clerk for Judge William Lawrence on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

After her clerkship, Lund became a prosecutor with the Elkhart County Prosecutor’s Office.

In 2008, Lund was elected to be a Goshen City Judge and, since, 2015, has served as a Elkhart County Superior Court.

History of the Seat

Lund has been nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. This seat was vacated on July 17, 2023, when Judge Jon DeGuilio moved to senior status.

Legal Experience

Lund has had a relatively limited legal career prior to becoming a judge. Her time consisted of a short stint as an associate at the firm of Ice Miller in Indianapolis and serving as a prosecutor for a year in Elkhart County, where she practiced in both the City Court and the Child Support Division.

Political Activity

Lund ran in her judicial race as a Republican. See Lund to Seek Judicial Post, The Goshen News, Jan. 23, 2007, https://www.goshennews.com/news/local_news/lund-to-seek-judicial-post/article_0dbbd4e5-da40-5777-b27b-75812d81bec3.html. Additionally, while in college, Lund worked for Indiana Senate Republicans Robert Garton and Marvin Riegsecker.

Jurisprudence

In 2008, Lund was elected and started as a Goshen City Judge, where she presided over criminal misdemeanors, city ordinance disputes, and traffic infractions. Since 2015, Lund has served on the Elkhart County Superior Court, which serves as a trial court of general jurisdiction.

Among the matters she presided over, Lund entered judgment against a plastic manufacturer for retaliatory discharge after a jury found in favor of a terminated employee. See Best Formed Plastics, LLC v. Shoun, 51 N.E.3d 345 (Ind. App. 2016). In another notable case on appeal from the City Court, Lund found the defendant guilty of public indecency and sentenced him to one year in jail, a harsher sentence than he had received in city court. See Morris v. State, 114 N.E.3d 531 (Ind. App. 2018). Lund’s sentence was affirmed by the Indiana Court of Appeals. See id. at 540. In contrast, the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a portion of Lund’s sentence when she ordered that the sentence for a violation of Indiana’s habitual offender statute be served consequently to a driving under the influence sentence, finding that the habitual offender statute did not create a separate crime but rather a sentencing enhancement. See Weekly v. State, 105 N.E.3d 1133 (Ind. App. 2018).

Overall Assessment

Starting as a city judge and then a superior court judge, Lund has been on the bench most of her career, and Lund’s record suggests that she would be a fairly mainstream, if slightly right-of-center judge. As Lund was presumably the choice of Indiana senators for the bench, she should be confirmed easily.

43 Comments

  3. dequanhargrove's avatar

    Lund seems to be your traditional Republican judge much more so than the new version of a MAGA Republican. She even helped start a drug court. She was well worth getting Brisco & the two home state senators support for Pryor & eventually Kolar to the 7th.

    Like

      • dequanhargrove's avatar

        @Jaime

        I disagree we can’t tell anything about Lund by looking into her past. She seems to have a right of center ideology. The fact that “the county she is in is heavily Republican to a hardcore conservative” only further solidifies that for me. She could have easily have been a right wing, MAGA Republican with the county she’s from. Hell you could make the argument it would have helped her career to do so & not being openly MAGA might have cost her a seat on the Indiana Supreme Court.

        So for her to not embrace that ideology at the height of its popularity when it could have benefit her the most to do so, only shows me she isn’t a right wing nut. And yes her helping to start a drug court absolutely tells us something about her. During a time & in a state when ultra conservatives are tripping over each other to sentence drug users under the jail & throw away the key after doing so, she actually embraced a common sense idea of trying to get them help. I think that goes to the core of her ideology because she most certainly didn’t have to do that & probably did so to her detriment.

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  4. keystone's avatar

    Today’s the application deadline for the Maine District seat (vacated by Jon Levy) and the Maine 1st Circuit Seat (vacated by William Kayatta). Applicants that are selected to interview with the selection committee will take place January 4th-6th, 2024.

    People who advance beyond this step will then interview with the Maine Senators and Reps.

    Also, the Massachusetts deadline for the seat vacated by Patti Saris was this past Monday.

    At this point, I believe all blue state application deadlines have concluded with the exception of Minnesota – Wilhelmina Wright seat. I haven’t seen any announcements yet from the MN senators about how they will fill that seat but they tend to publicize their actions/process.

    I’m not including the Joan Azrack (EDNY) seat that just opened bc it’s so recent and bc the NY Senators aren’t generally transparent about their process.

    Liked by 2 people

    • dequanhargrove's avatar

      I would assume Klobachar & Smith are going to open the application process again. I wish they wouldn’t though. Surely they should have good candidates left over from the Bryan process. Perhaps they want to find a Black woman to replace Wright.

      I wouldn’t be too worried about the EDNY. Schumer should have no shortage of attorneys on a working list for that vacancy. But good news all other blue state & the 1st vacancies application deadlines have now past.

      Liked by 1 person

    • star0garnet's avatar

      We’ve seen three blue state nominees in the past three months, and we’re up to 22 blue state seats without a nominee, so I hope the WH Counsel’s office is well underway with vetting many of them. Guess it would be fine if we keep getting slates of red state nominees, but I doubt that will be the case.

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      • keystone's avatar

        The Rhode Island selection committee’s application deadline was July 28th. I feel like we’ll get a nom there fairly soon. Since that seat technically becomes vacant in 2025, I could see them pulling a Shanlyn Park and confirming it super early just to be safe.

        The VA and IL Senators sent their candidate list to the WH on Nov 16 and Nov 17, respectively. That’s for the WDVA spot and the 2 spots on NDIL. I’m guessing WH has prob made a choice and is/or is about to start background checks.

        For the CDIL seat, the IL Senators completed a new application search in May, which was ahead of Shadid announcing, so I think that search may have had a big head start.

        And then of course, there’s the CA, EDMI, and SDNY seats.

        Liked by 1 person

    • Gavi's avatar

      @Thomas
      The judicial emergency designation isn’t just about vacancies. It’s about the size of the caseload per active judge. The exact ratio is given by US Courts, if you want to take a look.
      But yeah, that’s why one vacancy on a California court can cause a judicial emergency, while another court could be down by half and not be declared one.

      Liked by 1 person

    • dequanhargrove's avatar

      @Thomas

      Because of a Supreme Court ruling regarding crimes committed on Native American territory, their caseload exploded. Senator Lankford mentioned at the SJC hearing for the nominees that the district has actually stopped hearing civil cases altogether because of the increased number of cases. To be honest, once Russell & Hill are commissioned & the court isn’t to full staffing, they still will need an additional judge or two to catch up.

      Like

  7. Mike's avatar

    I’m seeing 11 red state judges in the pipeline, those should be confirmed asap in January as it’s votes we know will get 2-4 GOP moderate votes plus their home state senators.
    No excuse for those to go a day late in confirmation like all these blue state nominees do.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. keystone's avatar

    @ethan

    For Alaska, I wonder if Pelota has any recommendations for someone from the Native community. Pelota and Murkowski seem to have a good relationship and Sullivan’s wife is half native and his mother-in-law was a Native activist. I wonder if Pelota could help to broker a deal.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Mitch's avatar

        @Dequan

        A possibility for Alaska may be similar to what happened in Idaho. The first batch of nominees was unacceptable to at least one of the Senators, but they and the White House went back to the drawing board and found an acceptable nominee the second time around.

        Liked by 1 person

      • dequanhargrove's avatar

        I was much more confident Idaho would get a nominee than I am Alaska for several reasons. For one, Idaho had 50% of its judgeship vacancy while Alaska is short 33%. Two, it’s less than a year away from the election now, while Idaho has its vacancy much earlier in Biden’s term.

        The third reason I’m skeptical is because Sullivan & Murkowski had issues filling a seat under Trump. Sullivan got his pick nominated but he eventually had to withdraw as confirmation looked bleak. So I can only imagine how difficult it will be to agree under Biden.

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    • Ethan's avatar

      @keystone,

      This article from a few months ago (https://www.dermotcole.com/reportingfromalaska/2023/9/22/sullivan-seeks-to-recruit-right-wing-judge-candidates-ignoring-alaska-lawyers-who-applied) lists everyone who applied for the vacancy in Alaska. I had initially misread this other article (https://alaskabeacon.com/2023/09/22/with-alaskas-federal-judge-vacancy-nearing-2-year-mark-sullivan-breaks-from-nomination-tradition/) and incorrectly believed Sullivan’s commission recommended Lamoureux, Tucker, Grovier, and DeLucia.

      While I have less faith in Alaska than I did earlier in the day, I still have slightly more hope for Alaska than Montana.

      Also, since you’re relatively new to the blog, I will share something I shared with the other bloggers last Spring (when it happened). I met Senator Ossoff (who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee) at an event and asked him if he thought blue slips would stay and he said “I do [think they will stay], while there may be a lot of vacancies in states with two Republican Senators at the moment, do you really want Republicans picking whoever they want for the Southern District of New York?”. Given how many other people he had to mingle with at the event, I didn’t reply directly but my response would’ve been “I think that if a judicial vacancy in the Southern District of New York were to occur under a Republican, it would be from an existing judge appointed by a Republican President or from a death, as I doubt many Democrat appointed judges on the Southern District of New York would voluntarily let a Republican pick their successor.” Senator Ossoff did tell me that he had never met another constituent who knew as much about the judiciary as me and offered to maybe fly me up for a hearing one day (haven’t heard anything since).

      Liked by 1 person

  9. keystone's avatar

    What happened with Amy Baggio’s hearing?

    I know that in the days leading up to the hearing, there was some concern on here about how the Republicans would react to her time as a public defender. Nobody’s really said anything about how the hearing went. I also haven’t seen any news bits pop up about her getting grilled by the panel.

    Did they go easy on her?

    Liked by 1 person

    • dequanhargrove's avatar

      All of the fireworks were in panel one with Berner & Mangi. For panel two, only two senators asked questions. Durbin asked general questions & then senator Kennedy asked questions before the meeting was adjourned.

      Senator Kennedy asked all three about title six of the civil rights act & none could answer what it was about. Then he asked all three another question. Baggio & Brisco was able to answer but Lund was not. It was an uneventful panel two.

      Liked by 1 person

      • keystone's avatar

        I just watched the Kennedy portion. Looks like for the title VI question, Biaggio said it prohibited discrimination based on religious preferences and then immediately asked that her answer be struck from the record and apologized saying she confused it with Title VII. She then said she wasn’t sure about title VI bc she hasn’t had the opportunity to preside over a case where that came into question but assured him that if one came before her, she’d certainly read up on it.

        She didn’t know the answer but was clearly in the right area. Not sure how Prof Kennedy would grade that. The other two judges also said they didn’t know and would read up.

        Neither of the other two judges could answer the question.

        Kennedy then asked each judge another question. Judges Biaggio and Briscoe both quickly gave very confident answers and Kennedy seemed pleased. Lund, the Republican nominee, seemed to struggle a little with her question and didn’t seem to know the answer. Kennedy then asked her a followup question as to where she’d find the answer and in her response, she said she’d look at Article 6 of the Constitution and Kennedy replied, “You won’t find it there”. She’s a Republican nominee so she’ll be fine but if she was a blue state nom, Kennedy would have flipped out.

        Like

      • Gavi's avatar

        @Keystone
        Yup, we covered this pretty extensively earlier this week but I am glad you got a chance to go back and watch it.

        “She’s a Republican nominee so she’ll be fine but if she was a blue state nom, Kennedy would have flipped out.”

        Kennedy is not the only hypocrite around. The question is whether or not Dequan would equate Lund’s Article VI flunk with Bjelkengren’s Article III. Or is the latter the only one who would not be confirmed for failing Kennedy’s question, while others get the benefit of the doubt.

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      • dequanhargrove's avatar

        If Lund answered as bad as she did & also could only name six cases on her SJC Q when it asks for ten cases, then I would say she like Bjelkengren should be voted down… Lol

        But again remember what I said. Bjelkengren should be voted down because not only did she look like a deer in headlights, not only did she only list six cases when she asked for ten, but also because we could get a much better nominees if she was not confirmed. Now if this was December 16th of 2024 instead of 2023 & either Biden had lost reelection or Republicans had won the senate majority, I would be Bjelkengren‘s biggest fan. I would carry her to go get her commission if need be.

        As for Lund, would I vote for her straight up? NOPE… But looking at the package deal, she likely is the best we are going to get. There’s a strong possibility whoever replaces her will be more conservative, either as a Biden replacement, a future Republican president replacement or a Biden/Republican senate replacement. So I would be more included to vote for Lund under those circumstances than Bjelkengren right now. Although I’ll admit all bets are off the closer to the election we get if Bjelkengren is still the nominee. But today I would vote no on her.

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  10. dawsont825's avatar

    Hey all, completely irrelevant point here, but yesterday I graduate from college. I wanted to take the time to thank everyone for engaging in sound logical arguments (well, mostly everyone. iykyk) and just overall entertaining and educational conversations since I’ve been a frequent commentator. In between papers and assignments, I used this blog as a way to unwind and relax. One of my favorite things to do was find out that a new write-up of a nominee was posted, and then I would wait a day or two to read all the conversations. @Dequan, you’ve been one of the kindest people to me on here and easily have been the most entertaining person to read and learn from. Keep doing what you are doing, I look forward to all the discussions you start or take part in.

    For most of the past year and a half, while I was in the library on campus doing homework, I kept a tab open for this group and enjoyed reading your comments and the new posts Harsh posted here and there. For the most part, I thought I was alone in having such a passion for the judicial nomination and confirmation process. Turns out that I just hadn’t found this group yet and I’m thankful for the opportunity to discuss circuit vacancies and blue slips until our hearts are content.

    Not much else I wanted to say, so carry on. And modify the blue slip process Durbin! Or at least give the chairmanship to Sen. Whitehouse. Hopefully Biden can confirm the rest of the executive calendar who are judicial nominees, but I’ll take whatever I can get. Hopefully Biden can get to 215 by the end of his first term. Just need to pick up the pace and fill the red-state vacancies.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. dequanhargrove's avatar

    @dawsont825

    Congrats congrats congratulations. What an amazing accomplishment. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. I’m super happy for you.

    And thank you for the kind words. You definitely have plenty of people that are passionate about the judiciary such as yourself. My passion started when I was in college myself, after the first time I voted here in Miami-Dade county in 2000. My vote didn’t count after the Bush v Gore Supreme Court decision. I’m sure others have their own reasons that have led them to be just as passionate as you & I.

    I’m thankful for Harsh & this blog for the venue that allows me to communicate with great likeminded people such as yourself. Skies the limit for you. Perhaps one day we will be discussing you right here on this blog. I have a feeling if so, you no doubt will be an A+ nominee in my eyes.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Lillie's avatar

    I could be wrong but we missed another noms hearing for 1/10 because we didn’t get noms in by 12/15 or 28 days before the hearing.

    Really hope in that case they take the week off in early Jan and get noms confirmed this week because starting 2024 off by missing a hearing is unacceptable.

    Like

  14. dequanhargrove's avatar

    @Lillie

    It depends on the January schedule. In a normal schedule, they usually come back January 3rd just to gavel in then take a week or so off. My guess would be with them delaying their Christmas recess a week to come in tomorrow, I think you can almost pencil in then taking AT LEAST the first week in January off after they gavel in on January 3rd. If I was a betting man, I wouldn’t be against putting some money down on them taking two weeks off.

    So in that scenario, a SJC hearing slot wouldn’t be missed. To your point though, I think there’s a strong chance we get a new batch before the end of this week to make sure a slot isn’t missed.

    Like

  15. Zack's avatar

    Boggles my mind we haven’t seen more Clinton/Obama judges who can take senior status.
    Do they not care about being replaced by right wing hacks?
    If nothing else, I for sure thought Roger Gregory would have taken senior status by now given that he is easily the most liberal of the judges on the 4th Circuit who can take senior status.
    One would think he would want to ensure his seat doesn’t flip.

    Liked by 1 person

    • dequanhargrove's avatar

      I swear I was thinking the same thing about 25 minutes ago. I was hoping for some people on this blog that said we may see more announcements by the end of the year come to fruition in the next two weeks. I am still sticking to timeline that any circuit court vacancy that occurs after January will be hard to fill before the end of Biden’s term.

      Like

    • CJ's avatar

      The judge that I’m surprised hasn’t gone senior is Kim McLane Wardlaw. She’s not as liberal as Fletcher, Berzon, or Paez, but she is one of the most liberal Clinton Circuit judges, and in my opinion, the most liberal judge on the 9th Circuit who hasn’t took senior. There’s a chance she does it in 2024, but it’s still surprising she hasn’t done it now. Same goes for Ronald Gould, especially considering how old he is, even though he’s more moderate.

      Like

    • Thomas's avatar

      @Zach Jones:
      I think they don’t, because there were 26 Republican-appointed judges on the bench although Trump and McConnell even contacted them on behalf of leaving.

      But I although think it’s the choice of the judge only, when he leave at lifetime appointments. Otherwise term limits are required.

      But if I correctly remember, you have written some times ago, that the leaving of Drobney and Vaniske is inexcusable for you under Trump.
      But in the end it’s not your or my decision, but the one of the judge only, though it would be wishful.

      On the other side we already see, that only leaving under a President of the party appointed by would cement the composition of the courts, so the result is a 6-3 SCOTUS and a Fifth or Eighth Circuit as we have is now.

      As I already said, I don’t believe there will be significant changes in the next year, and we might just get some vacancies by leaving the courthouse with the feet first.

      Liked by 1 person

  16. dequanhargrove's avatar

    @CJ

    Those would be the two most surprising judges on the 9th circuit for me as well. Wardlow is ever close to the Clinton’s so I figured she would have already announced. Gould is wheelchair bound so I figured after Whitehead was confirmed, he would be confident his replacement could be another disabled judge & retire shortly after his confirmation.

    Like

  17. Aiden's avatar

    Just a quick clarification,

    Mass SJC nominee Elizabeth Dewar is not LGBT.

    At her Governor council hearing this was discussed.
    She is still likely to be confirmed, the hearing showed she will be a liberal or progressive.

    Liked by 1 person

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