David T. Schultz
How Judge Schultz decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Procedural preferences
On Fourth Amendment suppression, Schultz applies the independent-source doctrine rigorously: he will acknowledge that a warrantless seizure violated the Fourth Amendment yet still recommend denying suppression where a later, validly obtained warrant means the evidence would have been (and was) acquired by lawful means -- focusing the analysis on whether law enforcement would have sought a warrant and whether it was supported by untainted probable cause.
“Judge Schultz agreed that the search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment, but recommends denying Lazzaro's motion to suppress under the independent-source doctrine.”
On vagueness challenges he enforces the Eighth Circuit's sequencing rule (Bramer/Koech): a defendant must first prevail on an as-applied vagueness challenge before a facial challenge is ripe, so a vagueness motion to dismiss filed before the factual record is developed is recommended DENIED as premature (without prejudice), not on the merits.
“As Judge Schultz explained in the R&R, this facial challenge is also premature, as a defendant must prevail on an as-applied challenge before raising a facial challenge.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Motion to suppress N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Moot / procedural: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Defendant's motion to suppress [ECF No. 127] is DENIED.”
“Defendant's motion to dismiss Counts Five, Six, and Seven as unconstitutionally vague [ECF No. 132] is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as premature.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Schultz-assigned dockets confirmed via search_dockets (assigned_judge='David T. Schultz'), sampled 2026-06-03 (8-docket sample, not exhaustive). Mix: civil rights (Hill v. Rudenick; Chestnut v. Klund, 440), civil-rights jobs (Janish v. Metropolitan Council, 442), med-mal (Simha v. Mayo Clinic, 362), insurance (Aladimi v. State Farm, 110), Social Security (Miller v. Berryhill, 863), and criminal duty (US v. Daar, 25-mj). Confirms BOTH roles: referral magistrate (cases captioned -DTS under a district judge) and 636(c)-consent magistrate (Aladimi reassigned to him 'for all further proceedings' on joint consent, entry 18, 2022-09-09). In Aladimi the parties settled and Schultz signed the stipulated Order Dismissing Case (entry 24, 2023-05-19) -- a consent disposition, not a contested ruling -- so no grant-rate latency is grounded here. Not exhaustive.