Judicial retirement age should be raised
When John Paul Stevens retired from the U.S. Supreme Court at age 90 in 2010, he was still playing tennis, and still was a nimble, astute thinker about American jurispridence and the country’s politics. Last year, he published a book written in his retirement and, yes, is still playing tennis.
Stevens is admittedly the exception rather than the rule. Even though there are more nonagenarians than ever, relatively few can be found regularly gliding around a tennis court. But the fact remains, from all indications, Stevens could well be sitting on the Supreme Court today, and doing a more than satisfactory job, at age 95. It would have been a loss to the court and the country if Stevens had been forced to retire when he turned 70, way back in 1990.
But that is what judges in Pennsylvania must do right now. The state’s constitution mandates they must step down when they reach 70, an age that was set in 1968, when the average American life expectancy for a male was 66 years old. It’s now 76 years. Americans who are lucky enough to be in white-collar professions and enjoy relative affluence have seen their life expectancies creep ever higher (on the other hand, people in less fortunate economic circumstances have seen their life expectancies flatline or even decline). In 2015, mandating judges must retire at age 70 simply doesn’t make sense.
Pennsylvania voters will have the opportunity to raise the retirement age of judges to 75 next April when the issue will appear on the primary ballot. It will be the last stop on the road to amending the commonwealth’s constitution, since the proposal was approved twice each by the state House and Senate, with the latter signing off on it again last week.
Supporters argue Pennsylvania would benefit by having experienced, knowledgeable judges on the bench. Detractors argue, however, it would be a way to lengthen judicial terms and beef up pension benefits, it would slow the flow of new judges into the system and there is the possibility an addled judge could linger even as they drift into senescence. One state senator, Anthony Williams of Philadelphia, even pointed to the email scandal enveloping the state’s Supreme Court to argue “they should not serve a day longer, but they sure as heck shouldn’t receive the opportunity to serve five additional years.”
And, if the experience in other states is any indication, supporters of raising the judicial retirement age could have a brawl on their hands – voters in Louisiana, Arizona, Hawaii, New York and Ohio all turned down proposals to raise judicial retirement ages in recent years.
Nevertheless, we think Washington County’s visiting Senior Judge William Nalitz makes the most compelling argument about why judges should be allowed to stay on the bench until they reach 75. He served on Greene County Court of Common Pleas until he was 70 and, a year beyond that point, is still performing ably when he presides 10 days a month over civil cases in Washington County.
“Anyone who’s been on the job this long has a lot of knowledge and understanding, and it’s kind of a shame to ditch all that at an arbitrary date,” Nalitz told the Observer-Reporter last week. He said he wasn’t ready to retire when he turned 70, and “I’m willing to serve as long as they need me here.”
Think about this: Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is drawing big crowds as a Democratic presidential candidate at age 74. Former Beatle Ringo Starr still frequently tours at age 75 and ends his two-hour concerts by breaking into jumping jacks. Film director Martin Scorsese is still creating compelling movies at age 73.
If Sanders, Starr and Scorsese can stay in the arena well past 70, why should judges be forced to the sidelines once they reach that milestone?