Pauline Newman is still fighting to be able to do her job. It’s pretty simple: Article III-appointed judges are to hold their office during good behavior. It seems like the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has taken it upon themselves to redefine “good behavior” to include not making everyone else on the panel look foolish by dissenting and then having your opinion taken up by the Supreme Court. Newman has made a habit of this, even having one of her opinions affirmed by the Supreme Court during the Federal Circuit’s decision to functionally impeach her. Despite the Supreme Court and several medical doctors supporting her mental acuity, the Federal Circuit has decided to renew her suspension. Reuters has coverage:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said on Monday that it would extend its suspension of 98-year-old judge Pauline Newman for another year after determining that she had not complied with an internal investigation into her fitness to serve on the Washington, D.C.-based court.

The Court justified their decision by saying that Judge Newman — despite already submitting to neurological tests by lead doctors in the field — must take a “a full neuropsychological battery of tests” to determine if she is capable of serving as a judge. This reasoning shouldn’t be unfamiliar to readers who saw our Q&A with Newman from about two years ago. In it, she half-jokingly responded to the then accusation that she wasn’t fit to judge because she suffered a heart attack:

[S]aying and publishing that I had a heart attack when I never did, saying that I have a stent. It’s easy enough to find if someone has a stent. To which my answer was, I have no need to go through a head to toe MRI. And if I leave out even my little toe, they’ll say, well, that’s where the stent is.

She had this to say in response to the Court’s most recent extension:

“Thus far my accusers have avoided any litigation or objective judicial review that could expose the truth, and I am concerned lest these travesties of procedure and law acquire precedential force, placing a cloud on any judge of divergent policy or politics, or even a judge who writes dissents,” Newman said. “If the courts ratify this threat to judicial independence, it may affect the public’s faith in the federal judiciary as the foundation of constitutional democracy.”

This has to be one of the pettiest colleague disputes in the history of the judiciary.

US Appeals Court Extends Suspension Of 98-Year-Old Judge In Fitness Probe [Reuters]

Earlier: Appeals Court Extends Pauline Newman’s Suspension

Pauline Newman Speaks: ATL Interviews The Judge Who’s Fighting To Do Her Job

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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