‘Ranting, rambling, and paranoid’: Federal appeals court suspends 96-year-old judge until she passes mental exam
‘Ranting, rambling, and paranoid’: Federal appeals court suspends 96-year-old judge until she passes mental exam
The judge said Chief Judge Markey gave her permission to disregard a court rule. That judge "has been dead for 17 years and has not been a member of the Court for 32 years," noted the council.
Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building, and fired. She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files, and depriving her of secretarial support. Staff have described Judge Newman in their interactions with her as “aggressive, angry, combative, and intimidating”; “bizarre and unnecessarily hostile”; making “personal accusations”; “agitated, belligerent, and demonstratively angry”; and “ranting, rambling, and paranoid.” Indeed, interactions with Judge Newman have become so dysfunctional that the Clerk of the Court has advised staff to avoid interacting with her in person or, when they must, to bring a co-worker with them.
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I work in higher education, coordinating advanced degree programs. This situation makes me think of half a dozen research faculty I know personally that behave the exact same way.
I'm not of the opinion that people of advanced age are automatically less competent, but it's a fact that age-related cognitive decline is a thing. People persisting in important decision-making positions after such decline cause immense and compounding problems.
It'll never happen, but I'd love for us to collectively decide that a particular age range is the end of a person's professional life and the beginning of something new and exciting and also dignified. I'm aware of the cultural reasons that it can't happen in this particular time and place, but it would improve things a lot if it could.
there used to be tenure with sanity; it was rare for faculty to stay on after their abilities started to wane. Then came the boomers.