Susan P. Graber

Susan Pia Graber (born 1949) is an American attorney and jurist. She is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A native of Oklahoma, she was the 90th justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from 1990 to 1998. She served on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 1988 to 1990.

Early life Graber was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to a Jewish family. After high school Graber attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Legal career Upon graduation Graber became an assistant attorney general for the New Mexico Bureau of Revenue, where she continued until 1974. In 1981 she became a partner. She also served as a mediator for the United States District Court for the District of Oregon from 1986 to 1988. While on the bench she served as president of the Oregon Appellate Judges Association. However, Jones, prior to resigning his position, filed for re-election and won the election. She received her commission on March 19, 1998.

In 1998, the Classroom Law Project named her Legal Citizen of the Year, and in 2001 she received the Oregon For Country Award from Yale University. Graber was selected to be chairperson of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Appellate Practice in 2001. She has served on two committees of the United States Judicial Conference: Committee on State-Federal Jurisdiction (2010–13) and Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (2013–16).

Judge Graber on February 11, 2021, announced her intention to assume senior status upon appointment of her successor. She assumed senior status on December 15, 2021, when her successor, Jennifer Sung was confirmed by the United States Senate.

On November 30, 2021, Graber wrote the majority opinion in Duncan v. Bonta, a major 2nd amendment case that dealt with a law regulating high-capacity gun magazines, specifically, the law prohibits gun magazines that hold more than 10 bullets. Graber and the 7-4 majority found that the law does not violate the 2nd amendment.

Notable dissents In 2025, Graber dissented from a ruling allowing the administration of President Donald Trump to continue deploying National Guard forces in Portland, Oregon in response to protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement operations. The majority ruling paused a temporary restraining order by Judge Karin Immergut in which Immergut had blocked deployment of the National Guard in Portland, with Judge Immergut writing that Trump’s claims of daily unrest in Portland (which were used to justify the deployment) were “untethered to facts,” and that "his is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law."

Graber's dissent similarly emphasized that "no legal or factual justification supported the order to federalize and deploy the Oregon National Guard," and that the majority's decision allowing the deployment to go forward "is not merely absurd. It erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States' control over their States' militias and the people's First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government's policies and actions." Graber's dissent ended with this plea: "I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur. Above all, I ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer."