Oldest Active Federal Judge Asks Supreme Court for Her Job Back

The oldest active federal judge petitioned the US Supreme Court to lift her suspension from hearing new cases that’s lasted nearly two years.

Judge Pauline Newman has argued for several years that the suspension, stemming from a probe into her cognitive abilities and subsequent refusal to cooperate with demands for medical information and evaluation from her colleagues, is the equivalent of removal of a federal judge, an action reserved for the US Congress under its impeachment powers. She re-emphasized those arguments in a petition filed with the high court on Thursday.

Her benching “threatens the principle of judicial independence and may violate the separation of powers,” the petition states.

Newman, who will turn 99 in June, has already seen her suit, which she filed in May 2023, rejected by the US District Court for the District of Columbia and the DC Circuit. She argued an investigation into her mental fitness by colleagues on the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and subsequent one-year suspensions violated her due process rights and amounted to an unconstitutional impeachment.

The judge, famous for her numerous dissenting opinions, and her lawyers at the New Civil Liberties Alliance have long pledged to take their case to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

They got their chance after a three-judge DC Circuit panel in August said it was bound by US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit precedent to uphold the dismissal of Newman’s suit, and the full appeals court in December declined her petition to hear the case en banc.

Newman separately has challenged her benching through administrative channels. The DC Circuit panel suggested that was the proper path for potential relief in its opinion.

Any “recourse for Judge Newman must come from a judicial council or from the Judicial Conference, the entity statutorily empowered to review council decisions,” the court said.

Her petition argues the Judicial Conference didn’t address arguments she made about the constitutionality of her suspension, however. The “seeming absence of a judicial forum to address Newman’s as-applied constitutional claims itself raises constitutional concerns.”

Newman is also represented by Mitchell Law PLLC.

The case is Newman v. Moore, U.S., petition filed 3/6/26.