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Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Courts - "Several States Look to Boost Retirement Age for Judges"
Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal reports today:
As Justice John Paul Stevens is so ably about to prove, "90" may be the new "70," at least for judges, and state lawmakers are taking note.ILB: Indiana's retirement age for appellate judges, set by statute, is 75.Stevens announced last week that he would retire when the current Supreme Court term ends. He will turn 90 on April 20. If Stevens were a state Supreme Court justice, he would not have had the option of choosing when to retire because most states require those judges to step down after age 70, according to the National Center for State Courts in a recent study. But nine states this year have legislation pending that would either eliminate or raise the retirement age.
The Center noted that 20 states require retirement at age 70; four at 72; two at 74, and six at 75. Vermont is the only state with a mandatory retirement age of 90 for a state Supreme Court justice.
If applied to the U.S. Supreme Court, those states' retirement rules would force from the bench not only Justice Stevens, but also Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
In 2009, the Center reported, Kansas increased the age at which their justices must retire from 70 to 75, and South Dakota's House of Representatives also approved an increase from 70 to 75.
The nine states that have recently considered or are considering legislation to increase or eliminate mandatory retirement ages for state judges are: Alabama (from 70 to 72); Arizona (70 to 75); Massachusetts (70 to 76); New Hampshire (70 to none); New Jersey (70 to 75); New York (70 to none); Virginia (70 to 73); Washington (75 to none) and Wyoming (70 to none).
For more on Indiana , see this ILB entry from Sept. 4, 2006, headed "Means, 77, to continue as judge: He says age is no barrier to doing his job." It touches on the retirement age for trial court judges in Indiana, and near the end of the entry, appellate judges.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 14, 2010 02:10 PM
Posted to Courts in general