“What an honor!” Scheele said when he was called for a comment. “I am so humbled.”
Scheele, of Highland, will succeed Judge William E. Davis, who retired in April from the Lake Superior Court civil division in Hammond. He will be sworn to his new position on a date to be determined. Scheele, 48, has served since December 2016 as a Lake Circuit Court magistrate judge.
In private practice before that, he took criminal defense cases in Lake Superior Court and in federal courts.
In one notable case, he represented David Potchen, who held up a Merrillville bank in 2014 so he could be caught and sent back to prison; he was having a difficult time in civilian life .
The judge in his case allowed Potchen to rebuild his life outside prison, with help from people who responded to his plight after reading newspaper stories about the situation.
Scheele earned his law degree from the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University in 1996. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1993 from the University of Denver.
Davis was appointed in 1994 to be Lake Superior Court judge in East Chicago. He was the first black person to hold a Lake Superior Court civil division judgeship in county history, a Post-Tribune article at the time said.
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