CAFC Committee Says Newman Should Not Be Given New Cases for 1 Year for Impeding Fitness Probe
A three-judge committee at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that Judge Pauline Newman committed a "serious form of misconduct" by thwarting the investigation into her fitness to continue serving at the court. Releasing its findings publicly Aug. 4, the committee recommended the court's Judicial Council bar Newman from sitting on any new cases for a one-year period "until she complies with the Committee's outstanding orders such that the inquiry into whether she suffers from a disability may be completed."
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The council previously voted to exclude Newman from being assigned new cases while the investigation plays out, citing the judge's backlog of opinions and significant delays in issuing opinions (see 2306060053). The committee, made up of Judges Kimberly Moore, Sharon Prost and Richard Taranto, echoed these concerns in their findings, noting Newman "is unable to complete her work in a timely fashion." She "took four times as long to write half the opinions while sitting on half the number of cases as her colleagues," the report said.
While the investigation began as an overarching inquiry into Newman's mental and physical fitness to continue serving on the bench, it was ultimately narrowed to whether the judge's refusal to cooperate amounted to misconduct. This decision was made because of Newman's refusal to undergo neurological testing by a healthcare professional selected by the committee, among other actions.
The committee said Newman's defense of her refusal to submit to testing or provide medical records does not hold up. The judge "has not remotely shown the bases for the Committee's demands" to be insufficient, the report said, also pointing to evidence of her work record and hundreds of pages of evidence from her clerks and court staff revealing her concerning behavior and alleged cognitive disability.
Newman argued that the investigation violated her due process rights because Moore both initiated the case and sits as decision-maker. The judge also submitted a report from her own neurologist that she says eliminates the need for further examinations. The committee said none of these claims holds merit. The former challenges the "fundamental choices" made by Congress and the Judicial Conference built into the statute, while the latter is not a report from a professional picked by the committee. Even if Newman's report from her neurologist were accepted, it is rife with questionable results, the committee said. For instance, the report says Newman failed 80% of the memory-related questions.
The committee's report also included evidence from Newman's staffers, who reported she is unable to remember "how to perform simple tasks," and has appeared "paranoid" by insisting her devices are "hacked and bugged, sometimes by the Court itself."
The report also cites the judge's alleged treatment of a former clerk. This clerk was tasked with carrying out personal chores for the judge, including grocery shopping. The clerk would call Newman's judicial assistant in the middle of the night to conduct personal services for her, including wake-up calls. The assistant raised the issue in the court's Employment Dispute Resolution process, after which Newman failed to take any steps to solve the matter and emailed details of the dispute to nearly all the court's staffers.
The judicial assistant believed Newman was taking retaliatory actions against him for raising his concerns and so set up his work outside of her chambers, the committee said. Newman threatened to have the assistant forcibly removed from the building unless he returned to the chambers, the report said. The assistant left Newman's chambers permanently and worked elsewhere in the court, leading to the court moving his computer. Newman was convinced that the computer "had been stolen" no matter how many times the situation was explained, the committee said.