Melinda Sue (Furche) Harmon (born November 1, 1946 in Port Arthur,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

) is an inactive Senior

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (in case citations, S.D. Tex.) is the federal district court with jurisdiction over the southeastern part of Texas. The court's headquarters is in Houston, Texas and has six ...

, best known as the lead judge in the subsequently overruled

Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen was an American accounting firm based in Chicago that provided auditing, tax advising, consulting and other professional services to large corporations. By 2001, it had become one of the world's largest multinational corporat ...

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...

. Civil lawsuits against

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional compani ...

were consolidated in her court; she oversaw class action lawsuits on behalf of both

shareholders and its employees.

Education and career

Born in Port Arthur,

, Harmon attended high school in

Justin Justin may refer to: People * Justin (name), including a list of persons with the given name Justin * Justin (historian), a Latin historian who lived under the Roman Empire * Justin I (c. 450–527), or ''Flavius Iustinius Augustus'', Eastern Rom ...

, Texas, then received an Artium Baccalaureus from Radcliffe College in 1969, followed by a Juris Doctor from the

University of Texas School of Law The University of Texas School of Law (Texas Law) is the law school of the University of Texas at Austin. Texas Law is consistently ranked as one of the top law schools in the United States and is highly selective—registering the 8th lowest ac ...

in 1972. She served as a law clerk for Judge John Virgil Singleton Jr. of the

from 1973 to 1975. Harmon worked as a trial lawyer for Exxon Company, USA for 12 years during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1986 she ran unsuccessfully for election to a state district court bench, but was appointed by the Governor of Texas to a vacancy in the district court of Harris County, in 1987, a seat that she successfully retained by election in 1988.

Federal judicial service

On February 28, 1989, Harmon was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to a seat on the

vacated by John Virgil Singleton Jr. Harmon was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on May 18, 1989, and received her commission on May 22, 1989. Harmon assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on March 31, 2018.

Major cases

* Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States

References

External links

*
BBC article mentioning her role in Arthur Anderson trial

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harmon, Melinda Sue 1946 births Living people Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas United States district court judges appointed by George H. W. Bush Texas state court judges 20th-century American judges Radcliffe College alumni University of Texas School of Law alumni People from Port Arthur, Texas 21st-century American judges 20th-century American women judges 21st-century American women judges