Political career Mueller served as an extern for
California State Assemblyman
Lloyd Connelly. After moving to
Sacramento's
Tahoe Park neighborhood, Mueller was elected to the
Sacramento City Council, where she served from 1987 through 1992. While on the council, Mueller was selected to serve as Vice-Mayor and chair of the city's budget committee. She also led a successful effort with then-Mayor
Anne Rudin to introduce
campaign finance reform to the city's politics.
Legal career Mueller left her position on the Sacramento City Council in 1992 to attend
Stanford Law School. Mueller was formerly an
adjunct professor at the University of the Pacific
McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and
UC Davis School of Law. In January 2026, Mueller joined the faculty of
Duke Law School as a professor of the practice and director of the Bolch Judicial Institute.
Federal judicial service On March 10, 2010, President
Barack Obama nominated Mueller to serve as
United States district judge of the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Her nomination was unanimously confirmed by the
United States Senate on December 16, 2010. Mueller received her commission on December 21, 2010. She assumed
senior status on September 17, 2024, retiring on January 4, 2026. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the opinion on August 3, 2018. On April 17, 2015, Mueller held that criminal defendants charged with marijuana-related crimes had standing to bring a constitutional challenge to marijuana's Schedule I status, but ultimately rejected Defendants' constitutional arguments. On December 21, 2015, Mueller rejected a First Amendment challenge, filed by crisis pregnancy centers, to California's law requiring them to provide notice to clients regarding the availability of abortions and contraception. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision, but the Supreme Court reversed it. On December 29, 2022, Mueller upheld as constitutional California's ban on openly carrying handguns. The Ninth Circuit reversed the decision on June 29, 2023 saying Mueller "applied the incorrect legal standard" to the case, remanding back to District Court. Mueller presided over the decades-long case Coleman v. Newsom, a class action challenging the conditions in California's prisons that resulted in a mandated reduction in the prison population and new requirements for medical care, mental health care, and suicide prevention in prisons. She also sat on the three-judge panel that adjudicates certain issues in Coleman and the related case, Brown v. Plata. Mueller also issued some of the earliest decisions interpreting the First Step Act in the context of requests for compassionate release due to the risk of COVID-19 filed by incarcerated individuals with comorbidities. == Post-Judicial Career ==