Chief Judge Sentelle:
The Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg has announced that he will step down as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit next month. Succeeding him will be the Honorable David B. Sentelle (for whom I clerked). As Howard Bashman notes, Judge Ginsburg's term as chief was not due to expire until July. Yet were he to wait until then, Judge Sentelle would be ineligible to become chief because he will be 65. By stepping down slightly early, Ginsburg enables Sentelle to become Chief shortly before his 65th birthday. Judge Sentelle is not eligible for a full seven-year term, however, as he will have to step down by the time he turns 70.
I think it is inappropriate to refer to people by the silly praise-word titles they prefer such as "honorable".
(signed)
The Great LTEC
It is just too bad Judge Ginsburg admitted to smoking dope as a law professor--or we would not be having this discussion--nor having to worry about how Tony Kennedy thought the wind was blowing on any given day.
When they did away with mandatory retirement, the best judges still left at around 70 or shortly thereafter, but the least capable and, yes, even senile judges would just stay on and on and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Age restrictions may well be silly as applied to Judge Sentelle, but not so for so many others; judicial decrepitude is a real problem in the federal courts.
Dearieme, save the vitriol for elsewhere - if you can't at least respect that the majority of the country voted for Clinton twice (and the Vegas odds on Hilary are 1:1).
In some cases the age limits aren't from that long ago. Australians amended their constitution a mere 30 years ago to make High Court justices retire at 70. It wasn't even a controversial question. It had support from just about everybody. (The judges may have been against it, but they're not allowed to express political opinions so there was no way to know what they thought.)
My guess is that if your chosen profession is analyzing in minute detail the pronouncements issued by high-ranking members of the Catholic Church hierarchy, then you typically refer to the Pope as "His Holiness".
It is not a matter of naming people by titles which they "prefer." You can't just take a title (like "the Great" or "Honorable") by choice. These are titles that come by convention with the station. Our society has certain conventions, by which people who have a particularly special or elevated station, are called by a special title. Some stations have different variations of the title depending on the occasion. ("Judge X" or "Pope X" is fine on some occasions; while "the Honorable X" and "his Holiness X" are appropriate on more formal occasions, like in a formal address). Personally, I think it is a good idea for society to give titles to certain positions by convention, because it is a good idea for citizens to have respect for certain positions.
If you think that a formal title is silly, then why have titles at all? Why bother with calling him, "Judge Sentelle"? Why not just call him "Mr. Sentelle"? After all, I don't call my plumber, "Plumber Smith", so why should I give special title to my judge? And why stop at "Mr." or "Ms."? "Mr." and "Ms." are extra titles. Why not just call people solely by their given names?
(This always bugs me. The Supreme Court has to know that 'General' in Solicitor General works as an adjective, not a noun, yet they still do it...)
What's this? Pompous lawyers? Hard to believe.
Around here, that'd be taken as insult. On first (every) contact, Mr. ___ is appropriate. After that, your first name. Anything else would be taken as intended to offend. I'm serious. Mr. ___ is only appropriate to a letter calling or implying the recipient is a scoundrel.
As far as titles go, I've always wanted to be Your Excellency. But so far I haven't even gotten anyone to Your Very Goodness.
Plus, I often see complaints here about "rent-seeking interest groups". What is AARP if not the largest, most influential, and most pernicious of those?
Anyway, kudges, for the most part, are engaged in settling disputes between other people, so regardless of their age they'll rarely have to deal with "consquences of their decisions." Some might also say that having no skin in the game is an advantage if you're looking for an impartial judge.
Moreover, in my limited experience with federal judges, the older ones are some of the better ones, the senior judges know when to scale back their workloads and when to quit, and there isn't a serious problem of "judicial decrepitude" as TerrencePhillip suggests.
Nice to know that Honorable people do it too. :•)
Except in Philadelphia. There nobody is ineligible for any reason including felony status or death.