Federal Circuit Seeks to End Judge Newman’s Reinstatement Suit

The active judges on the Federal Circuit again asked a district court in Washington, D.C. to dismiss remaining claims from Judge Pauline Newman’s lawsuit seeking reinstatement to the influential appeals court she’s served on since 1984.

Newman, who is 96 and the oldest active federal judge in the country, was suspended in September by her fellow active judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after refusing to submit to neurological testing following reports the judge had exhibited paranoia in interactions with court staff and employees in her chamber. Newman is no longer is receiving new case assignments, though she’s said she still comes into her chambers to work.

The judge’s lawsuit challenges as unconstitutional several provisions in the Judicial Conduct & Disability Act, the authority used by the Federal Circuit Judicial Council to bench Newman for a year. The suit was trimmed significantly as a result of an earlier dismissal motion in February.

For Newman to maintain the rest of her suit, she “must show that ‘no set of circumstances exists under which’ the Act may be constitutionally applied—a ‘demanding standard’ that Plaintiff cannot satisfy,” Judicial Council said in a reply brief in support of its motion for a judgment on the pleadings, quoting from an earlier ruling by District Judge Christopher R. Cooper in the case.

Specifically, Newman argued in a April 5 brief opposing her suit’s dismissal that the law is in conflict with the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment as it allows a Judicial Council to “demand medical examinations and private medical records as a condition for” staying in active judicial service. It also failed because it allowed intrusive searches without a “warrant, or in the alternative in certain cases, a showing of constitutional reasonableness,” she argued.

Newman’s arguments “rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of both Fourth Amendment precedent and the statutory scheme that Congress crafted for the judiciary to investigate allegations of misconduct or disability within its ranks,” the Judicial Council said in its reply. The act is not a criminal statute and it can pass constitutional muster without having to meet “any sort of rigid checklist regarding warrants and exceptions” designed to ensure fairness to criminal suspects, it argued.

New Civil Liberties Alliance represents Newman. The US Justice Department represents the Federal Circuit’s Judicial Council.

The case is Newman v. Moore, D.D.C., 1:23-cv-1334, reply brief 4/18/24.