Roberto Lange

Roberto Antonio Lange (born April 22, 1963) is the chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota.

Born in Pamplona, Spain, Lange was raised on a family farm near Madison, South Dakota. Lange earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Dakota in 1985 where he graduated magna cum laude as a University Scholar having received the McGovern-Abourezk Human Rights Award. He attended Northwestern University School of Law and received his Juris Doctor in 1988, cum laude.

During his time at law school, Lange worked as an editor and board member for the Northwestern University Law Review, represented the law school on the Jessup International Moot Court team and board, and graduated with the Order of the Coif distinction as within the top ten percent of his class.

After graduating law school, Lange worked as a law clerk in 1988 and 1989 for Judge Donald J. Porter, of the District of South Dakota. Lange then joined the law firm Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz & Smith in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1989.

Lange became a partner in 1993, and later served as the head of the firm's litigation section. Lange specialized in complex commercial litigation, products liability, and personal injury cases, class action, and ERISA litigation. During his twenty years with the firm, he handled business disputes for individuals, small businesses, and nationally known clients.

In 2005, Lange argued the case of Rhines v. Weber in front of the Supreme Court of the United States. As court-appointed counsel for a death-row inmate, he presented the issue of whether a federal court may stay a section 2254 habeas corpus petition which included exhausted and unexhausted claims. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Lange's client, by a 9–0 vote, reversed the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and allowed the district court to stay Rhines' petition. Ultimately, in 2019, Rhines was executed.

Upon the recommendation of U.S. Senator Tim Johnson, President Barack Obama nominated Lange to a vacant seat on the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota on July 8, 2009, that had been created by Judge Charles B. Kornmann assuming senior status. The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Judicial Nominations voted unanimously to rate Lange as "well qualified." The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary reported Lange's nomination out of committee on October 1, 2009. The United States Senate confirmed Lange by a 100–0 vote on October 21, 2009. He received his commission the same day. He became chief judge on January 1, 2020.

In March 2020, Lange interpreted the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie in light of congressional enactments and the federal government's trust obligation to American Indian tribes to require the federal government to provide the Rosebud Sioux Tribe with "competent physician-led health care" in a suit that followed the Indian Health Services having close the emergency department of the lone medical facility on the reservation. Lange however ruled that the State of South Dakota, and not the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was granted the statutory right to set the speed limit on a United States Highway crossing through a reservation.