Background
Thapar, Amul Roger was born in 1969 in Detroit, Michigan, United States.
Thapar, Amul Roger was born in 1969 in Detroit, Michigan, United States.
Bachelor of Science, Boston College, 1991. Juris Doctor, University California Berkeley, 1994.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Thapar received a Bachelor of Surgery from Boston College in 1991 and a Juris Doctor from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley in 1994. He was a law clerk to South. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio from 1994 to 1996, and for Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1996 to 1997. He was an adjunct professor in the University of Cincinnati College of Law from 1995 to 1997 and from 2002 to 2006.
He was an attorney in the corporate law firm of Williams & Connolly in Washington, District of Columbia, from 1997 to 1999.
He was a trial advocacy instructor in the Georgetown University Law Center from 1999 to 2000. He was an assistant United States. Attorney of the United States. Attorney" General’ s Office, Washington, District of Columbia from 1999 to 2000.
He was a General counsel, Equalfooting.com from 2000 to 2001. He returned to private practice at the Squire, Sanders & Dempsey firm in Cincinnati, Ohio from 2001 to 2002.
Thapar returned to the United States. Attorney" General’ s Office as an assistant in the Southern District of Ohio from 2002 to 2006, and was the United States. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2006 to 2007.
While an Assistant United States. Attorney, he was appointed to the Attorney General"s Advisory Committee ("AGAC") and chaired the AGAC"s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. On May 24, 2007, Thapar was nominated by President George West. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky vacated by Joseph M. Hood. Thapar was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 13, 2007, and received his commission on January 4, 2008.
Thapar sits in Covington, Kentucky outside of Cincinnati, as well as in London, Kentucky, and in Pikeville, Kentucky.
While on the bench, Thapar has served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, University of Virginia School of Law, and Northern Kentucky University. He has been an invited guest at Federalist Society programs.
Thapar is America"s first federal district judge of South Asian descent. In 2013, Thapar was assigned to a case in the Eastern District of Tennessee due to the impending retirement of Judge Thomas Phillips from the Knoxville court.
The case involves a high profile break-in by peace protesters at the Y-12 National Security Complex"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 "federal crime of terrorism" to rule that the protesters must remain in jail until their sentencing on September 23, which has been delayed until January 2014. Thapar sentenced one of the defendants, 84-year-old nun Megan Rice, to three years in prison for breaking into the United States. nuclear weapons complex and defacing a bunker holding bomb-grade uranium, a demonstration that exposed serious security flaws.
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.