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- Staff said Judge Pauline Newman, 96, was "losing it, mentally" after 39 years on the bench.
- Newman fought against the investigation. Some colleagues said she's as sharp as ever.
- But a 11-judge council ruled today that Newman can't hear new cases for a year.
A group of 11 judges barred a long-serving US appellate judge from hearing new cases for a year after failing to cooperate with an investigation into whether health issues prevent her from keeping up with the job's demands.
Pauline Newman, who is 96 years old and has served as a judge on the Federal Circuit appeals court since the 1980s, was sidelined in a unanimous decision of her colleagues that came down on Wednesday. She has insisted that the investigation is factually and legally baseless, a claim the new decision forcefully rejects.
"Judge Newman and her counsel have aggressively sought to discredit this entire process by trying their case in the press while conjuring a narrative of 'hostile,' 'disrespect[ful],' and 'appalling' treatment marked by exercises of 'raw power,' all borne out of 'personal animosity' for Judge Newman," the decision said. "There is no evidence to support these claims."
Since March, Judge Newman's unusually public dispute with her fellow judges has rocked the Federal Circuit. She claims that they tried to cajole her into retiring before formally launching an investigation. She also said she couldn't trust that the process would be fair because other judges had already concluded that she had to go.
But the court — acting mostly through a three-judge committee led by Chief Judge Kimberly Moore — has said it had good reasons to dig into Newman's health. They said Newman threatened to have one of her assistants arrested, and courthouse staff reported signs of paranoia and memory loss in their interactions with her. One said she was "losing it, mentally."
"She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files, and depriving her of secretarial support," Wednesday's ruling said.
Greg Dolin, a lawyer for Newman, said two physicians have said she is still mentally sharp. He has said disagreements between the judge and staff don't come close to showing "disability."
The decision also faulted her for her interactions with law clerks. One of them quit because they didn't like the "drama" created by the investigation, and another invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer dozens of basic questions posed by the investigating panel of judges.
The Federal Circuit appeals court, where Newman has been a judge since 1984, was created to hear cases in niche areas of federal law, like patents and government contracts. Newman has become known for writing thorough dissents, especially in patent disputes.
The judge has gone on the offensive, suing to stop the investigation and doing interviews with the Washington Post and Bloomberg Law. Two former judges have publicly said Newman is still lucid and sharp and faulted their former colleagues for not transferring the case to another group of judges who would seem more neutral.
The Judicial Conduct and Disability Act doesn't allow judges to remove one another — only Congress can do that — so Wednesday's decision is a harsh reprimand. At the same time, it left the door open for Newman to cooperate with the court's probe and for the one-year suspension to be shortened if she did.
Dolin, the lawyer for Newman, said she planned to press forward with her lawsuit and appeal the sanction to the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability. He wants the case transferred to another circuit.
"They've rejected each and every attempt at cooperation we've floated, each and every one," he said. "We believe the sanction is flatly unlawful."