{"id":7431,"date":"2007-04-02T12:21:22","date_gmt":"2007-04-02T17:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2007\/04\/02\/nysba-officially-endorses-76-as-re"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:53:51","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:53:51","slug":"nysba-officially-endorses-76-as-retirement-age-for-judges-with-fitn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2007\/04\/02\/nysba-officially-endorses-76-as-retirement-age-for-judges-with-fitn\/","title":{"rendered":"NYSBA officially endorses 76 as retirement age for judges — with fitness tests for all"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Saturday, March 31, 2007, the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association<\/a> officially approved the recommendation of the NYSBA Task Force on the Mandatory Retirement of Judges that “all state judge . . . be allowed to serve to age 76, subject to the two-year certification process currently in place for Supreme Court Justices with certification beginning at age 70 and service until age 76.”\u00a0 However,\u00a0while the Task Force recommended that the judges of Court of Appeals (the State’s highest court) be exempted from the fitness certification requirement, the Delegates insisted “that a process be established for certification of Court of Appeals judges at two-year intervals after age 70.” (see update posting<\/a>, April 4, 2007)<\/p>\n

The approved Resolution quoted from the Task Force’s March 2007 Report:<\/p>\n

“mandatory retirement of judges deprives the courts and the people of New York of experienced and productive individuals and discourages otherwise qualified and experienced judicial candidates from seeking judicial offices. . . “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"fencePainterS\"\u00a0\u00a0The Report gave this reasoning for excluding the Court of Appeals from the fitness certification requirement:<\/p>\n

It is important to note, however, that judges of the Court of Appeals are not required to seek certification.\u00a0 The Task Force felt that this unique, seven-member judicial body should be treated differently.\u00a0 Typically, appointments to this bench come later in an attorney\u2019s career.\u00a0 The competence, temperament, and skills of the judges are widely known to the profession, and certification for the purpose of determining whether a judge is competent to remain on the bench is unnecessary at this highly visible judicial level.\u00a0 Moreover, it is the opinion of the Task Force that the collegial and intimate nature of the Court of Appeals makes it amenable to self-monitoring.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you’re like me, you might be excused for finding the reasons given as quite weak, while wondering about the real motives. Apparently, the members of NYSBA’s House of Delegates were also left unpersuaded that the most visible and powerful judges in the state did not need to be within the certification program.\u00a0 Perhaps they were familiar with the book Leaving the Bench: Supreme Court Justices at the End<\/em><\/a> (2000; reviewed here<\/a>), by David N. Atkinson.\u00a0 Leaving the Bench<\/em> gives example after example of justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who stayed on despite becoming unfit to serve due to mental and physical infirmities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"umpireS\"<\/font><\/span>\u00a0As suggested in the posting on ethics and the Graying of the Bar<\/a>, I am not sure that we can count on a Certification process to be evenhanded and effective.\u00a0 This may be just my natural skepticism of government bureaucracies of every sort here in New York State.\u00a0 Note that the Task Force Report<\/em> states, citing statistics from the NY Office of Court Administration, that “Since 1997, over 150 [Justices of the Supreme Court]\u00a0have been certificated or re-certificated; only nine have been denied certification in this time period.”\u00a0\u00a0 I do not know whether this speaks to the general fitness of the septuagenarian judges who appliced for Certification, or to the generosity of the evaluators.\u00a0\u00a0I would very much like to hear from other about the workings of the OCA Certification process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"BaseballHaikuCoverN\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Let’s, perhaps, change the subject: a few poems from Baseball Haiku<\/font><\/em><\/a> (2007):<\/p>\n

spring training
\nan old timer plays pepper
\nwith three rookies<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

……………………….. by Cor van den Heuvel – Baseball Haiku
\norig. pub. ModerneHaiku 34:2<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

extra innings
\na runner’s shadow
\ndown the third base line<\/p>\n

………………………. by John Stevenson – orig. pub. Past Times <\/em>(Red Moon Press)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

summer loneliness . . .
\ndropping the pop up
\ni toss to myself<\/p>\n

……………………….. by ed markowski – orig. pub. Pop-Up<\/em> (tribe press)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"infielderG\"\u00a0And, a few more from the f\/k\/a<\/em> Baseball Haiku Page<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

retired Reds scout –
\nstill eyeing the field
\nthrough dark glasses<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

my nephew\u2019s fastball –
\nI hand back his glove
\nand keep the sting<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n………………………………… by Barry George
\n\u201cretired Reds scout\u201d – Mayfly<\/em> #23;
\n\u201cmy nephew\u2019s fastball\u201d –\u00a0 bottle rockets<\/em> #11<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

51 candles
\n&
\nstill this wish
\nto
\npitch in yankee
\nstadium<\/p>\n

……… by ed markowski<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

sting
\nof the old man\u2019s
\nfastball<\/p>\n

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, by John Stevenson – Upstate Dim Sum<\/em> (2005\/II)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Saturday, March 31, 2007, the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association officially approved the recommendation of the NYSBA Task Force on the Mandatory Retirement of Judges that “all state judge . . . be allowed to serve to age 76, subject to the two-year certification process currently in place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lawyer-news-or-ethics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1VR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12577,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431\/revisions\/12577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}