Pauline Newman's story shines a light on the aging judiciary, where judges are getting older and lifetime tenure is raising thorny questions about retirement.
Pauline Newman's story shines a light on the aging judiciary, where judges are getting older and lifetime tenure is raising thorny questions about retirement.This photo shows an exterior view of the U.
S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit building from 2002 in Washington, D.C.for three years over questions about her competency is asking the Supreme Court to throw her a lifeline. Judge Pauline Newman is 98 years old — and she wants a chance to hear cases again. Her story shines a light on the aging judiciary, where the average age of federal jurists is 69. Lifetime tenure is now raising thorny questions about retirement. Newman joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1984, during the Reagan era. She quickly became a star in the small community that tracks patent law.Former colleague Paul Michel said Newman is more or less the same as ever — but the court around her has changed. It's become more skeptical of patents."She's extremely bright, very hardworking, quite independent," said Michel, who served alongside Newman for 22 years."She's slow in writing opinions and that rankles some judges, and she dissents more often than about any other judge, and that also rankles some judges." Those disagreements came to a head in March 2023, when the chief judge of her court launched an investigation. Newman was 95 at the time.court wanted to explore her fitness to serve. But Judge Newman refused to sit for an exam with experts the court selected. Her lawyer said she wanted to choose her own doctors, who gave her a clean bill of health. "The idea that she's not capable of doing her judicial duties is nonsense," said her attorney John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel at the nonprofitTo this day, no court has found Newman is incompetent. That question has been paused while attorneys fight over whether the judge has received due process. It's a long time to be off the bench, Vecchione said. "I mean there have been sexual harassers, there have been people who fudged their ... expenses," he said."There's been all kinds of skullduggerous activity, alcoholic, all kinds of things and those people have not been kept off the bench as long as Judge Newman, who's done nothing wrong." Newman has been speaking at conferences, going to legal events, and writing during her long suspension, according to former colleagues."I thought that it was ridiculous and I should not succumb or set a pattern of judicial colleagues being able to bully and intimidate and force out a colleague they don't like who writes dissents," Newman said.to weigh in and evaluate her claims that she's been deprived of due process. It's a long shot because the high court takes only a tiny fraction of cases each term.The Federal Circuit, where Newman once heard cases, declined to comment for this story. So did the Justice Department, which is defending the court in this bitter dispute. But an internal committee that hears claims about judicial conduct and disability rejected Newman's due process claims in a March 24 decision. The committee included some of the most highly regarded judges in the federal system. Their"Judge Newman cannot have been deprived of a property interest in an office she still holds," they wrote. Ryan Black, a political scientist at Michigan State University, said the Newman case signals something bigger about the federal court system.Proposals would ease standards, raise retirement age to address pilot shortage "The story's pretty clear that, across the board as judges age, there are measurable, reliable empirical decreases in a lot of the performance aspects that they engage in," he said. Her former colleague, Paul Michel, says Newman is clear and cogent. Michel, who retired more than 15 years ago, personally favors a retirement age for judges, like many other professions. "Surgeons, airline pilots, many people with sensitive jobs have to stop at a chosen age set by authorities whether they want to continue or not or whether they're able to continue or not," he said.
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