Federal Judge, 96, Is Suspended Amid Concerns About Her Mental Fitness
Federal Judge, 96, Is Suspended Amid Concerns About Her Mental Fitness
Judge Pauline Newman has denied accusations that she is unable to perform the duties of her job and has challenged an investigation into her cognitive state.
Judge Pauline Newman’s colleagues on a federal appeals court in Washington have called her “the heroine of the patent system” and “the most beloved colleague on our court.” But on Wednesday, they also told Judge Newman, 96, that she had been suspended amid growing concerns about her mental fitness.
The order suspending Judge Newman for one year followed an unusually bitter and public dispute over her cognitive state and her ability to continue to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a specialized court that hears patent cases.
Judge Newman, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, has vigorously challenged her colleagues’ investigation into her fitness and has said she is mentally able to do her job. Earlier this year, she filed a federal lawsuit accusing the chief judge of the court, Kimberly A. Moore, and other colleagues of violating her due process rights.
In the unanimous order, which was issued by the court’s active judges, Judge Newman’s colleagues wrote that they had no choice but to suspend her, despite her status as “a highly valued and respected colleague,” widely recognized for her contributions to the court and knowledge of the patent system.
More than 20 interviews with members of the court staff, along with emails sent by Judge Newman, “provided overwhelming evidence,” the order said, that she “may be experiencing significant mental problems including memory loss, lack of comprehension, confusion and an inability to perform basic tasks that she previously was able to perform with ease.”
The order said that evidence pointed to instances in which Judge Newman, when struggling with basic tasks, “became frustrated, agitated, belligerent and hostile.”
“With no rational reason — other than frustration over her own confusion — Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building and fired,” the order said. “She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files and depriving her of secretarial support.”
Her refusal to comply with a special committee’s order that she be examined by a neurologist and undergo neuropsychological tests “constitutes serious misconduct,” the order said. It said she could be suspended again in one year if she continued to refuse to undergo the required tests.
“We are acutely aware that this is not a fitting capstone to Judge Newman’s exemplary and storied career,” the order said. “We all would prefer a different outcome for our friend and colleague.” Gregory Dolin, Judge Newman’s lead lawyer, said on Wednesday that he planned to ask a panel of judges from around the country to review the order, which he called “flatly illegal.”
He said Judge Newman was never given an opportunity to question court staff members who had made accusations about her mental fitness. He also said it was inappropriate for her colleagues, who have personal knowledge of the claims against her, to judge her fitness for office.
“She obviously believes she’s perfectly competent, and her physicians have confirmed that,” Mr. Dolin said.
It is not uncommon for federal judges, who have life tenure, to serve into their later years. Judge Wesley E. Brown, who died in 2012, regularly presided over cases well past his 104th birthday, with a tube under his nose feeding him oxygen during hearings.
Judge Newman’s suspension seemed bound to reignite the debate over mandatory retirement ages and term limits for federal judges. A 2020 study in The Ohio State Law Journal found that the average age of federal judges was 69, older than it had been at any other time in the country’s history.
Arthur D. Hellman, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said the suspension was a “fascinating but also sad development.” He said it was “extremely unusual that this whole proceeding has been carried out in public view.”
“Almost always in the past, when something like this has happened, it has been handled behind closed doors, without a formal proceeding and certainly without the public scrutiny we’ve had with this proceeding,” Professor Hellman said, noting instances in which the spouses or children of federal judges had nudged them toward retirement.
The order said that Judge Newman’s colleagues had tried to handle concerns about her fitness internally but that she had refused to speak to them or quickly ended their attempts to discuss the issue. Judge Moore had shared a draft complaint with Judge Newman detailing some of the concerns and tried to meet with her, the order said. But Judge Newman refused repeated requests for a meeting, it said.
Interactions with Judge Newman had become “so dysfunctional,” the order said, that the clerk of the court had advised staff members to avoid interacting with her in person or to bring a co-worker with them.
Mr. Dolin said that Judge Newman had submitted to the court reports from two doctors she chose — a neurologist and a forensic psychiatrist — who “concluded she suffers from no mental or cognitive disability that would render her unable to perform the functions of her office.”
Judge Newman also provided an analysis that found she was writing opinions as quickly this year as she was in 2018, before anyone formally complained about her mental fitness, Mr. Dolin said.
Judge Newman has no plans to retire, Mr. Dolin said, but would step down if her doctors believed it were necessary.
“She’s not holding on to this because she’s got nothing better going on in her life,” Mr. Dolin said. “She is doing this job because she believes in this job, and she believes she has something to contribute.”
“She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files and depriving her of secretarial support.”
That's textbook Alzheimer's, or elderly decline. They trust themselves (and the pastor on TV) and distrust their close family members.
My grandma had Alzheimer’s before she passed.
She once accused me of trying to poison her. I was making pico de gallo; all I had in the bowl were fine chopped tomatoes.
She came over demanded to test the salsa because I keep trying to kill her (nope.) and plotting to kill her (quiet conversations with my dad while she was watching Golden Girls. About robots and stuff.) ripped open the bag of chips, sampled it and huffed “it’s too spicy!” And trying to get into my face over it.
It was literally just tomatoes.
Paranoia is super common in dimentia patients. Though, one good thing I’ll say about Alzheimer’s is you’ll never see a rerun again
My father, who once had an amazing memory, now delights in watching the same few British murder mystery series over and over, because he doesn’t remember anything about them. I can literally ask him the next morning about something engrossing we watched the preceding eve, and he won’t recognize any of the plots, characters, settings, or other details.
Meanwhile, he can talk very cogently about events from the Kennedy administration.
"it's too spicy!"
My wife just spent a week watching after her grandmother who has some form of dementia/Alzheimer's. She lives with my mother in law normally, but she definitely needed a vacation, so my wife spent the week at their home.
One night she made some pasta with vodka sauce, just basic store-bought jarred vodka sauce. Her grandmother complained that it was too spicy. I don't know which brand she picked up, but I don't think I've ever had a vodka sauce I would have described as being spicy.
So between the cognitive decline and her having an old white lady palate to begin with, my wife basically didn't have any food with flavor all week, she was really excited to come home and order some Indian food.
It was also a battle to get her to drink water, even though she constantly wants to go for walks, it was 90+ degrees out, and she wore a sweater the whole time.
Luckily she's still pretty chill, she doesn't really freak out over anything, at least not yet, but she can be really stubborn and is just really draining to deal with.
I got shanghaied into fixing a sink that wasn't draining for them recently. It took me maybe an hour to do, and in that time she must have come up to ask if I needed anything at least 5 or 6 times.
She also drove my wife nuts about a small hole in the attic that she's convinced a bird is getting in through (jury is still out as to whether or not there even is a actually a bird) and she kept trying to get my wife (who is not particularly handy) to go up into the attic (that was probably 110 degrees) to cover the hole with cardboard (because that will totally keep a bird out, let alone the elements)
Other types of dementia too, I believe, although Alzheimer’s is most likely/common
I'd like to see the evidence her colleagues brought forth proving that she's acting like this without rational cause beyond simply their witness testimony. The reason being that I've personally seen instances of elderly folks accused of acting like this and people insisting they have Alzheimer's/dementia; however, when I'm with those same elderly people, they're completely fine and it turns out those accusers were exaggerating the circumstances.
Another potential cause could be bad medicine balances/interactions. My wife's grandpa had this happen a few years back, where he started suddenly acting like he had dementia and his mental state declined so rapidly that finally one doctor became suspicious at just how fast it was happening. Turns out, a couple of his doctors were giving him medications that had very bad interactions with each other, as well as too high of dosages which amplified the side effects. They balanced out his meds and monitored him inpatient for a couple weeks and he was back to normal. He's finally starting to have early onset Alzheimer's now (different from the dementia diagnosis back then), but for the last 5-6 years he's been very coherent and functional living on his own.
Anyway, my point is: If her neurologist and another psychiatrist deemed her fine, then the court needs to have some rock solid proof that she's acting very erratically. As an aside, I do support term limits for federal judges, so I don't necessarily disagree that she should be forced to retire. I'd just like to know more context for this specific case.
No 96 year old is mentally fit to perform such an essential function with long-term implications. Just retire already.
The statement that she is writing opinions just as quickly as 2018 is particularly funny when it's her clerks doing the majority of the work.
I wonder if those who believe 70 is okay to be leading gov institutions also think 90 is okay. Probably still depends on whether it benefits them...
Oh, well, if she’s writing decisions at the speed of a 91 year-old, let her keep going. In fact, give her a raise and her car keys back.
I’m 52 and while I think I’m still smarter than the average 52 yo I’m no where near what I was 20 years ago. And 40 years from now, if I’m alive, I’ll be significantly less able cognitively than I am now. Hell if I can eat cereal from a bowl with the aid of a spoon I’ll consider that a success.
But one thing I know for sure is at 96 the last thing I’ll want to be doing is working or being responsible for decisions regarding anybody else. Why these people want to be in these positions is beyond me.
Man, in my 20’s I was stupid as shit
Well yeah me too. But I said 20 years ago, so 32. I was old enough to be a little more wise and still young enough to not be old.
I was pretty sharp in my 20s but I’m well aware of how much of an idiot I was then.
You’re on the other end of the bell curve, just be patient ;-)
You’re on the other end of the bell curve, just be patient ;-)
Stupid or inexperienced?
Sometimes it's hard to tell, because when you do know how shitty the fallout is, making the poor choice seems so, so much dumber than what's flying through the kid's imagination.
It's disturbing that there isn't a good process for removing judges at the end of their career. Being "nudged towards retirement" by family after you are beyond your ability to perform the job is appalling. It's the arrogance of presiding over other people's lives through legal cases until you decide you don't want to anymore rather than whether you should that's so bad. What about all the citizens getting suboptimal legal judgements?
Does anyone still think there are fair trials in the United States?
Fucking retire already, you goddamn lich.
I think stories like these expose the brain rot at the top echelons of society. All of them believe some form of Ayn Rand BS that they alone are preventing society from collapsing when really they are preventing families from obtaining living wages, affordable education, and healthcare.
they are preventing families from obtaining living wages, affordable education, and healthcare.
She's a Reagan appointee, so that's probably fine with her.
Good. It's absolutely maddening that a Reagan appointee who was born before the Great Depression was still on the bench in 2023. Lifetime appointments were clearly a mistake. None of these mfers can be trusted to retire of their own volition at an appropriate age.
I mean back when the lifetime appointments were put in place, the average lifespan ended at 50, or some shit. They probably expected someone to die before they'd get anywhere near this level of cognitive decline.
This isn't wrong, but it's misleading. A huge portion of that statement is based on newborns dying. There were also early advances in medicine that helped by the time around the birth of America. (Which is where this judge serves/gained a lifetime appointment.)
In 1850 (in Wales, which is a good representation of a Western civilization), 20 year olds could expect to live into their 60s. And 50 year olds into their 70s. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
While the 90+ crowd is an exception, that's true even in our time. But living into your 70s was not unusual when the laws were written.
Now do politicians.
Imagine being an 18 or 20 year old in her court and facing legal judgment from someone 70 years older than you. Insane.
Any age really. The older you get, truly you understand their mental decline both personally and.
All public offices should be capped at 30 + Median Age, I think. That feels like the best approach to representative governance.
Agreed. Yes, some people are fine well into their 90s and others fail much earlier, but it should prevent the vast majority of age related issues and prevents people who are 50 years out of date running our country
Wrath of the Lich Queen
But does she know how to create a pdf? Create a calendar event on a smart phone? Setup a wireless router. Build Ikea furniture? I'd like my judge to at least have the ability to understand a little bit of how to live in the world before sentencing. I'm sure she can tell you the year, presidents, etc. But how many times has she lost her glasses in the past week?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier this year, she filed a federal lawsuit accusing the chief judge of the court, Kimberly A. Moore, and other colleagues of violating her due process rights.
“With no rational reason — other than frustration over her own confusion — Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building and fired,” the order said.
A 2020 study in The Ohio State Law Journal found that the average age of federal judges was 69, older than it had been at any other time in the country’s history.
Arthur D. Hellman, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said the suspension was a “fascinating but also sad development.” He said it was “extremely unusual that this whole proceeding has been carried out in public view.”
The order said that Judge Newman’s colleagues had tried to handle concerns about her fitness internally but that she had refused to speak to them or quickly ended their attempts to discuss the issue.
Mr. Dolin said that Judge Newman had submitted to the court reports from two doctors she chose — a neurologist and a forensic psychiatrist — who “concluded she suffers from no mental or cognitive disability that would render her unable to perform the functions of her office.”
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