Newman is working steadily from her light-filled office on Lafayette Square, overlooking the White House and the Washington Monument. She is surrounded by glass awards and photographs with Supreme Court justices; her court handles patent cases, and so there are diagrams of inventions, including her own. Newman, who turns 96 in June, has no interest in going anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newman came of age just after World War II, an era of mechanical invention she embraced enthusiastically. She learned to fly planes, drive racecars and ride motorcycles. She became a chemist and eventually a patent attorney. She helped create the Federal Circuit in 1982 as part of a presidential committee on industrial stagnation, then was appointed by Ronald Reagan to serve on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere can be no doubt that Judge Newman is the heroine of the patent system,\u201d Moore, the chief judge, said in remarks published earlier this year. She said that \u201ca lesson I have taken to heart\u201d is that \u201cJudge Newman once told me that her only regret was when she held her tongue and that I should never be afraid to say what I think is right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So perhaps it\u2019s not surprising that in March, when Moore urged Newman to retire or take lighter \u201csenior\u201d status, Newman said she could not<\/a> because she was \u201cthe only person who cared about the patent system and innovation policy\u201d on the court, according to Moore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPerhaps it was a bit of an overstatement,\u201d Newman told the media with a smile. But she didn\u2019t mind seeing the assertion memorialized (albeit in a court order accusing her of misconduct). A committee made up of Moore and two other judges subsequently\u00a0expanded its investigation<\/a>\u00a0to include the allegation that Newman is refusing to cooperate. Her clerks have been subpoenaed and deposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moore did not respond to requests for comment, but the court has made public<\/a> nearly a dozen orders issued by the committee formed to investigate Newman\u2019s competence. Those filings allege that Newman has shown \u201csignificant mental deterioration\u201d since suffering a heart attack in 2021. Newman takes far longer than other judges to decide cases, they say, and writes fewer opinions. She could not complete recent online security training and blames hackers when she cannot find a file on her computer, according to the committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She allegedly forgot a court rule in place for the past five years, instead referring to a long-dead chief judge. She is also accused of mishandling a serious dispute between two of her staffers and threatening to have the complaining employee arrested. \u201cStaff described her as being in attack mode,\u201d Moore wrote in April. One is quoted as saying, \u201cI believe Judge Newman is simply losing it mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newman called the allegations \u201ceither false or grievously distorted.\u201d They are also \u201cdisconcerting,\u201d she said, coming from colleagues \u201cthat I\u2019ve known for many years as straightforward, decent people.\u201d Two other active judges on the court are in their 80s; most have served with Newman for at least a decade. She denies that she ever had a heart attack and says she is not conferring with ghosts of past judges. Her hacking concern, she says, is well-founded: \u201cThe judiciary\u2019s administrative arm is constantly warning us about hacks and scams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The judge is being represented by the conservative nonprofit New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which says it is unconstitutional to force a federal judge to share medical records or undergo psychiatric testing or to indefinitely take her off cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s one thing when your colleagues are saying, \u2018You\u2019re being naughty, and the public ought to know that you\u2019re being naughty,\u2019 and then Congress can do what they wish,\u201d said Greg Dolin, a former Newman clerk at the NCLA. \u201cIt\u2019s quite another when judges say, \u2018We think you\u2019re misbehaving, so we\u2019re not going to let you be a judge in anything but name.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dolin helped arrange for the nonprofit to represent Newman. He sees Newman\u2019s challenge as in line with the group\u2019s conservative views on government regulations alongside its challenges to covid mandates, student loan forgiveness and gun bump stock bans. Term limits for federal judges might make sense, Dolin said, but \u201cthis is the system we\u2019ve created … and we have to abide by it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawsuit also argues Newman is not notably slower or less productive than her colleagues and doesn\u2019t write many majority opinions because her specialty is the dissent. A\u00a02017 study<\/a>\u00a0found that Newman dissented in patent cases 290 times in her career, more than three times as often as the next-closest judge on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe takes more time because she cares so much,\u201d said Janice Mueller, a patent attorney who has known Newman for 30 years and says the judge has always been a slow writer. Being a skilled and vociferous dissenter is \u201ca very important, impactful role to play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s particularly important now, her allies say, as the U.S. Supreme Court has\u00a0begun weighing in<\/a>\u00a0on intellectual property cases more often. As a staunch defender of the patent system, Newman \u201cfeels it\u2019s even more important for her to dissent,\u201d Fordham University law professor Hugh Hansen said. \u201cThis particular point of view might be lost if she doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newman\u2019s refusal to quit on anyone else\u2019s terms served her early in her career. Three decades after her mother marched for the right to vote, Newman decided she would be a doctor. No medical school accepted her. She went to graduate school at Yale for chemistry instead; no chemical firm would hire her except American Cyanamid. She was the only female research scientist there, and her bosses tried to force her into becoming a librarian until she threatened to walk out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She would later receive her own patents for colorful, dirt-resistant synthetic fabric she helped invent. But after three years, Newman took her savings and bought a ticket on a boat to Paris, where she supported herself by mixing drinks on the \u00cele Saint-Louis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Six months later, \u201ctotally destitute,\u201d Newman came back to the United States and found \u201ca job that I knew no respectable scientist would take, and that was writing patent applications,\u201d she told female law students atNew York University in 2013. Soon, she was a patent lawyer. The next time she went to Paris, it was as a science policy specialist for the United Nations, again the only woman in her professional association. On her office desk sits a mug from a bar she could not enter<\/a> during her time at NYU Law \u2014 it reads \u201cGood ale, raw onions, and no ladies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg\u00a0praised Newman<\/a>\u00a0in 2015 for having \u201cgiven courage\u201d to young women with \u201cher intelligence, her diligence, her devotion to a very difficult area of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Constitution says federal judges serve \u201cduring good behaviour,\u201d generally understood to mean \u201cfor life.\u201d Some academics argue that judges can be taken off the bench for behaving badly, but that is an untested legal theory<\/a>. Under a 1980 law, the active judges of a circuit court can agree to punish a judge after a formal investigation, but that punishment cannot be removal from office or indefinite suspension. If the judges deem their colleague disabled, another judge can be appointed<\/a> by the president, but the disabled judge still cannot be forced to retire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe vast majority of the time, the law is the shotgun behind the door,\u201d said Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University who specializes in judicial ethics and procedures. Threatened with public embarrassment, judges usually step down. But, he said, \u201cfor judges who want to die with their boots on, telling them to retire is like giving them the death penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newman\u2019s attorneys\u00a0argue<\/a>\u00a0that the Federal Circuit committee has defied the law\u2019s process by taking her off cases and is too conflicted to handle this investigation itself. The committee\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0it will only consider transferring the probe to a different circuit if Newman first undergoes a medical examination; she says she will undergo the exam only if she is put back on cases and the probe is transferred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moore suggested going \u201csenior,\u201d a part-time status for older judges. Veterans of the court say that would give the chief judge control over Newman\u2019s caseload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Randall Rader, a former chief judge on the Federal Circuit, said he has spoken with Newman recently and found her to be \u201cthe same Polly I knew 10 or 20 years ago \u2014 as sharp as ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court also \u201chas a record of dealing with its aging members with great compassion, without any jeopardy to their work\u201d by giving them more assistance, Rader said. Judge Giles Rich, like Newman one of the first judges appointed to the Federal Circuit, served until his death at age 95. At the time, he was the oldest active federal judge<\/a> in U.S. history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not everyone favors that precedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabe Roth of Fix the Court, which advocates for a more accountable federal court system, said active members of a federal appeals court should be \u201con the ball 100 percent of the time.\u201d He also compared Newman to Ginsburg, not favorably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s this idea that I think permeates the judiciary, that \u2018only I can do the job.\u2019 It\u2019s this hubris that is really pernicious,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s anti-democratic and monarchical in a way that is not helpful for the ongoing trust of our fleeting democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hate calling out older women, being a younger guy,\u201d said Roth, who is 40. \u201cBut that\u2019s the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ginsburg\u2019s decision to stay on past 2016 helped pave the way for a conservative Supreme Court. Patent politics are harder to parse. In one momentous recent Supreme Court decision<\/a> in the field of patents, Justice Clarence Thomas voted with the court\u2019s liberal judges against Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dennis Crouch, a patent attorney and law professor at the University of Missouri, said the dispute does not seem ideological to him. He has crunched the numbers<\/a>, and while Newman is the most patent-friendly judge on the Federal Circuit, Moore is close behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMoore\u2019s order says other judges are concerned about Judge Newman\u2019s health; I think that\u2019s real,\u201d he said. He suggested Moore, a former electrical engineer for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, \u201cwants to run a tight ship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newman agrees that \u201cthere\u2019s a lot to be said about term limits\u201d but thinks they would have to account for increasing life expectancy and new technology making it easier to work into old age, plus good old-fashioned genetic flukes. \u201cI\u2019mdefying the laws of probability, or at least my DNA is,\u201d she said. Her parents lived into their 90s; her sister \u201cdied too young\u201d at 89.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/imrs-2.webp\")
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In an order unsealed recently, the court said it was\u00a0narrowing its investigation to misconduct<\/a>\u00a0because of Newman\u2019s rejection of a medical exam. She is still\u00a0barred from hearing new cases<\/a>, which the court says is justified based on her backlog alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n