96-Year-Old Judge’s Fitness Hearing Will Stay Closed to Public

A Federal Circuit panel shot down 96-year-old Judge Pauline Newman’s request to make public a July hearing that will discuss her fitness to remain on the bench.

In a Tuesday order, Chief Judge Kimberly A. Moore and two other judges wrote that publicly airing out the details of Newman’s alleged mental and physical decline would be inappropriate because the hearing will rely on confidential details shared by as-yet-unnamed witnesses.

“Opening the July 13 argument to the public carries a grave risk of precisely the harms the Committee has carefully avoided up to this point—namely, inadvertent disclosure of ...