Donna Sue "Susie" Morgan, known professionally as Susie Morgan, formerly known as Donna Sue Beach & Donna Sue Leteff, (born April 22, 1953) is a

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. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (in case citations, E.D. La.) is a United States federal court based in New Orleans. Appeals from the Eastern District of Louisiana are taken to the United States Court of A ...

Early life and education

Born in

Winnsboro, Louisiana Winnsboro is a town in, and the County seat, parish seat of Franklin Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of 2020, its population was 4,862. History Franklin Parish was created on March 1, 1843, from portions of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, Oua ...

, Morgan earned a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in 1974 from

Northeast Louisiana University The University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM) is a public university in Monroe, Louisiana, United States. It is part of the University of Louisiana System. History ULM opened in 1931 as Ouachita Parish Junior College. Three years later it becam ...

Monroe, Louisiana Monroe is the ninth-largest city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and is the parish seat and largest city of Ouachita Parish. With a 2020 census-tabulated population of 47,702, it is the principal city of the Monroe metropolitan statistical ...

, and her

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

in 1976. She obtained a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

;

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif () is an American honor society for law school graduates. The Order was founded in 1902 at the University of Illinois College of Law. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of trial lawyers, the serjeants-at-la ...

in 1980 from the

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

Paul M. Hebert Law Center The Paul M. Hebert Law Center, often styled "LSU Law", is a Public university, public law school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is part of the Louisiana State University System and located on the main campus of Louisiana State University. Because ...

Career

Morgan first served from 1980 to 1981 as a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

to Judge Henry Anthony Politz of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (in case citations, 5th Cir.) is one of the 13 United States courts of appeals. It has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: ...

. Morgan joined the

Shreveport Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, third-most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, Lo ...

firm of Wiener, Weiss and Madison in 1981, where she started as an associate and became a partner in 1985. She worked with them for more than 24 years. She practiced in the New Orleans office of the Phelps Dunbar law firm from 2005 to 2012, becoming partner in 2009.

Federal judicial service

On June 7, 2011, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

nominated Morgan to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana that had been vacated by Judge

Thomas Porteous Gabriel Thomas Porteous Jr. (December 15, 1946 – November 14, 2021) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He served for sixteen years before being impeached and remove ...

' impeachment. On November 10, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported her nomination to the floor of the Senate by a

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "by live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by respondin ...

. On March 28, 2012, her nomination was confirmed by a 96–1 vote. She received her commission on March 30, 2012.

Notable decisions

Morgan has overseen the New Orleans Police Department Consent Decree since its entry in January 2013. On January 31, 2019, Morgan ruled against

New Orleans Saints The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South division. Since 1975, the team ...

ticket holders seeking to compel the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...

and the NFL Commissioner to enforce a rule that would alter the result of or force a replay of the 2018-2019

NFC Championship game The NFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the National Football Conference (NFC) and one of the two semifinal National Football League playoffs, playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional Ame ...

. In June 2024, Morgan ruled that the rap artist B.G., who was on

supervised release Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole of ...

from federal prison at the time, would be required to provide the US government with copies of any song lyrics that he writes prior to the song's production or promotion, and that federal prosecutors could seek to toughen the terms of his supervised release if the lyrics are judged to be "inconsistent with the goals of rehabilitation."

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Susie 1953 births Living people 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women lawyers 21st-century American women judges 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American women lawyers Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana Lawyers from New Orleans Louisiana lawyers Louisiana State University Law Center alumni People from Winnsboro, Louisiana United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama University of Louisiana at Monroe alumni