Immergut was born in Brooklyn, on December 22, 1960.[2][3] Her father was an Austrian chemist and her mother a Swedish mathematician.[3] Her parents married in Sweden and then immigrated to the United States where Karin was born.[3]
Immergut served for five years as a deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, where she primarily prosecuted white collar crimes. In 1998, Immergut was a Multnomah County deputy district attorney when she went to work for Independent CounselKenneth Starr, who was investigating then-President Bill Clinton.[3] Immergut personally questioned Monica Lewinsky in an August 6, 1998, deposition.[5] In 2001, she joined the U.S. Attorney's office in Portland as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Oregon. Serving two years in the position, she prosecuted cases involving white collar crime and worked on Project Safe Neighborhoods, a national gun violence reduction initiative.
U.S. attorney
Immergut was sworn in as interimUnited States attorney on October 3, 2003, and the United States Senate confirmed her nomination on that same date. She was appointed by President George W. Bush to the position.[2] Bush signed her commission to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon on October 4, 2003, and she was sworn in as the United States Attorney on October 8, 2003.[2] She succeeded Michael W. Mosman in that role.
As U.S. Attorney, Immergut served as the district's top federal law enforcement official. She managed a staff of approximately 107 people, including 51 assistant U.S. attorneys, who handled civil litigation on behalf of the United States and criminal investigations and prosecutions involving violations of federal law such as white collar crime, narcotics trafficking, violent crime, money laundering and cybercrime.[2] In addition, Immergut served on the Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys.[6]
In January 2008, Immergut applied to succeed Judge Garr King on the United States District Court for Oregon. She was initially considered the leading candidate for the post as the preferred choice of U.S. Senator Gordon H. Smith.[5] But after news reports highlighting her role in the investigation of President Bill Clinton's sex scandal, she was not one of the final candidates for the position, which ultimately Marco A. Hernandez was appointed to.[7] She re-registered as a Republican at the beginning of Bush's first term as President, in the same month that she went to work for Mosman.[5] She resigned from the office in July 2009 in order to be appointed as Multnomah CountyCircuit Court Judge.[8]
On January 3, 2019, her nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate. On January 23, 2019, President Trump announced his intent to renominate Immergut for a federal judgeship.[12] Her nomination was sent to the Senate later that day.[13] On February 7, 2019, her nomination was reported out of committee by a 20–2 vote.[14] On July 31, 2019, the Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote. She received her judicial commission on August 5, 2019.[15]
Notable decisions
On March 10, 2023, Immergut ruled that Salem police officer Robert Johnston had no way of knowing he violated Eleaqia McCrae's rights when he shot her with rubber bullets at a protest in 2020, a legal principle known as qualified immunity. [16] Immergut overturned a jury's unanimous verdict that Johnston violated McCrae’s Fourth Amendment right not to be subjected to excessive force and erased the jury's decision to award McCrae $250,000 for economic loss and $800,000 in other damages.[17] On September 16, 2024, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Immergut was wrong to throw out the jury’s award and that she should not have granted the officer immunity.[18]
On July 14, 2023, Immergut upheld Oregon's gun control law, Measure 114, "banning large capacity magazines and requiring a permit to purchase a gun falls in line with “the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety."[19]