‘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.
We need a mandatory retirement age for federal appointees, fucking immediately.
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.
Imagine you go to court and this fossil at 96 is the one who determines your fate. Imagine if you catch her on an off day and she thinks you stole her computer, her files or other nonsense she's accused court staff of doing (the only thing that's been stolen is her marbles, and it looks like they went a few years back)
Get these shocking people out of the courts and into the nursing home where they belong
Should just make the retirement age for these people 65. Everyone. Senators. Presidents. Want to get a job in an advisory role after that? Cool, at least then we have a filter for the madness and your dementia can't fuck anyone over directly.
There needs to be an age limit for these positions. Sounds like she should have retired 25 years ago.
Sounds like dementia. My father in law has dementia and all of a sudden started accusing me of stealing his $5 sunglasses and being super aggressive at my mother in laws birthday party. Shit sucks when it progresses to this stage and someone in charge of people's lives should definitely call it a day.
People don't realize that Judge Judy isn't even a caricature. It is shockingly easy to just up and up become a judge.
Term limits
I hope she doesn't drive a vehicle to work.
Where are these Obama Death Panels and FEMA Camps?!
You don't need to be 96 years old to become a Putin and invade a Ukraine
I don't get the outrage.
This is law. It takes ten years of practice just to really scratch the surface in one small area of law. Arbitrary compulsive retirements (such freedom) serve only to cause brain and experience drain that cannot be easily made up.
Add to that, most people retire when they should all on their own. Maybe sometimes they need a little push from colleagues. Very rarely does it rise to the level of publis inquest and a forced competency exam.
This time it seems it did, and look! It's happening. What's the real problem? Why is throwing the baby out with the bath water seen as a legit solution?
I prefer government officials, and especially judges and senators, to have real experience. Most elders are not senile old coots, especially not those who spent their lifetime in a career that by nature is as daily taxing on memory and recall as is the law. Some say the law is a study and a practice in memory. The best trial lawyers usually have the best memory. Add to that the extensive amount of reading and writing trial attorneys and judges do. It's not like this judge has been clocking out from a show-up job every day at 5 pm and then doom scrolling or binging Netflix.
I would say of the judges I've been before including some elderly federal judges in a senior or retired judge, or magistrate sort of role, have been some of the most knowledgeable, most efficient judges I've argued to, especially at the appellate level, where all they do (in theory) is jurisprudence, logical and policy reasoning, and interpretation, the most mentally demanding sort of law practice.