Talk:Senior status

United States courts and judges Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States courts and judges, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United States federal courts, courthouses, and United States federal judges on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United States courts and judgesWikipedia:WikiProject United States courts and judgesTemplate:WikiProject United States courts and judgesUnited States courts and judges articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Nomenclature for judges[edit]

Per Wikipedia policy, I'm recording here an assertion made by anonymous user 12.144.5.2:

(Until 1958,the judges who retired under this act were called "retired judges".At that time,the title of "senior judge",which until 1948 had been used for those thereafter titled "chief judge" of circuit courts,was substituted).

I removed this section until this assertion can be confirmed from some independent source.

— DLJessup (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at the judges' rosters in the West's Federal Reporter.The "Chief Judge" designation for the senior judges of Circuit Courts appeared in 1948.In 1958,the use of "Senior Judge" for judges on what's now called "Senior Status" began with a special note of the statute authorizing this repeated in every volume for some time.Previously they had been listed as "Retired Judges".

Stanley F. Reed,in retirement from the Supreme Court,was frequently assigned to sit in the former Court of Claims (which was not a circuit court) and never to a Circuit Court.--Louis Epstein/le@put.com/12.144.5.2 03:17, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing and unnecessary wording in the introductory paragraph[edit]

The introductory paragraph begins as follows: "Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges, and judges in some state court systems. After federal judges have reached a certain combination of age and years of service on the federal courts, they are allowed to assume senior status. A judge must be at least 65 and have served for 15 years to qualify, with one fewer year of service required for each additional year of age...."

Farther down, under the heading "History," the last sentence of the third paragraph says: "...In 1984, the requirements were further modified to what is often called the "Rule of 80": once a judge or justice reached age 65, any combination of years of age and years of service on the federal bench which totaled to eighty entitled the judge to assume senior status." This sentence makes it clear that, beginning in 1984, fifteen years of service were no longer required. Unless the applicable law actually phrases it that way, continuing to even mention in the introductory paragraph "...and have served for 15 years..." is confusing and unnecessary (even though the sentence continues, "...with one fewer year of service required for each additional year of age....").

It would, I think, be better to slightly alter the first sentence and then combine the second and third sentences of the introductory paragraph to read: "Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges (and judges in some state court systems). A federal judge or justice, having reached age 65, may elect to assume this status if the sum of his or her age and years of service on the federal bench totals eighty or more." Wikifan2744 (talk) 00:22, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are two minimum requirements below which (absent a certified disability) senior status is not available.

65 years of age
10 years of service.

Beyond that the sum must be at least 80 and the applicable law actually spells out the options of

65+15 (if judge was under 50 when appointed qualification is immediate at age 65)
66+14
67+13
68+12
69+11
70+10 (if judge was over 60 when appointed qualification is delayed until 10 years are completed)

Judges decide whether they want to leave active status or not(Pauline Newman is still active after 39 years of service and turns 96 next month) but those ways to reach 80 are the ones that are allowed. 108.29.145.226 (talk) 21:01, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pay[edit]

The article leaves unclear whether judges with senior status continue to be paid as regular judges or whether for pay purposes they are retired and receive their pension instead.Bill (talk) 17:15, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to that is that they receive the current pay of a regular judge as long as they do at least three months' worth of full-time work per year and when they stop doing that their pay is frozen thereafter.

Discussed at length here in a PDF:

https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=appellatepracticeprocess

108.29.145.226 (talk) 23:22, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]