U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman lost her legal challenge to a suspension over concerns of mental deterioration. A judge rejected her constitutional challenge to the law underlying her suspension.
I dunno. I’m not 97. But I am in my mid 60’s and what I do know is my wisdom has grown immensely since I was 40. So who’s to say that can’t happen for someone in their 90’s?
I will add that I am not specifically supporting this judge’s argument (that she’s fine) because she is clearly putting out ruling that are not based on the law. But neither is SCOTUS, and for very different reasons.
I would still prefer a tribunal-type scenario that has the authority to investigate and remove judges based on facts, not just age.
This study discussed age-related cognitive decline, and towards the end, they describe how a sample found that a much steeper decline tends to begin at 60.
There is an active tradeoff happening here, assuming that someone continues to gain valuable wisdom in their later years of life (which is a bold assumption – some people seem to have stopped gaining it in their teen years).
Notably, one of the parts of the mind that goes into decline is logical reasoning…which I think would be pretty important for someone in such a role that we’re talking about.
I dunno. I’m not 97. But I am in my mid 60’s and what I do know is my wisdom has grown immensely since I was 40. So who’s to say that can’t happen for someone in their 90’s?
I will add that I am not specifically supporting this judge’s argument (that she’s fine) because she is clearly putting out ruling that are not based on the law. But neither is SCOTUS, and for very different reasons.
I would still prefer a tribunal-type scenario that has the authority to investigate and remove judges based on facts, not just age.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2683339/
This study discussed age-related cognitive decline, and towards the end, they describe how a sample found that a much steeper decline tends to begin at 60.
There is an active tradeoff happening here, assuming that someone continues to gain valuable wisdom in their later years of life (which is a bold assumption – some people seem to have stopped gaining it in their teen years).
Notably, one of the parts of the mind that goes into decline is logical reasoning…which I think would be pretty important for someone in such a role that we’re talking about.