Judge, 96, Mourns Tarnished Legacy While Saying She Won’t Leave

Judge Pauline Newman answered the door of her apartment at the Watergate complex in Washington on a chilly March evening.

Her longtime colleague on the Federal Circuit, Judge Alan D. Lourie, had walked over from his home in one of the Watergate’s other towers. It was not a social visit.

Two days before, Federal Circuit Chief Judge Kimberly Moore and two other judges had sat down Newman, the oldest US federal judge, to explain why she should take senior status after almost 40 years on the bench. That would allow her to still hear some cases but at a reduced ...