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Should there be an age at which judges are no longer allowed to sentence defendants?

By Douglas A. Berman

The provocative question in this title of this post is inspired by this provocative and effective articleby Joseph Goldstein at Slate headlined "The Oldest Bench Ever: Extreme aging in the federal judiciary ? and the trouble it causes."  The piece begins with a story of an 84-year-old federal judge appearing very confused when imposing a life sentence on a drug defendant, and it includes these statistics and stories: Life tenure, intended to foster judicial independence, has been a unique feature of the federal bench since the Constitution was ratified in 1789. Back then, the average American lived to be about 40 and the framers didn't express much worry about senile judges. "A superannuated bench," Alexander Hamilton said, is an "imaginary danger...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 18, 2011 (boomark / email).