Average Age of Federal Judges: Causes, Impact, and Reforms

The average age of Article III federal judges reached roughly 67.7 years in 2024, according to the Federal Judicial Center, and a 2023 University of Maryland study found the median had climbed to 70 for the first time in history, with about 10 percent of federal judges aged 85 or older.¹² The federal bench is older than at any prior point in American history and older than the high courts of virtually every other democracy.

How Old the Bench Actually Is

The 890 authorized Article III judgeships are spread across the Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the U.S. District Courts, and the Court of International Trade. As of May 2026, 34 seats were vacant, all but one at the district level.³ A 2020 analysis found that roughly 66 percent of federal judges were 65 or older, a third were 75 or older, and more than 11 percent were 85 or older.⁴ At least one centenarian has sat on the federal bench in 21 of the last 28 years. Judge Wesley E. Brown served until his death at 104. Judge Jack Weinstein retired in 2020 at 98.

In 1850, the average age of a sitting federal judge was 58. By 2020, it was 68.⁵ The FJC’s historical charts do not separate judges on “active” status from those on “senior” status because both groups continue to hold office under Article III’s “good behaviour” standard.⁶ The average therefore includes judges in their eighties and nineties who have reduced their workloads but never fully left the bench.

What Pushed the Number Up

Two forces explain the climb. The first is rising life expectancy. Judges appointed in the early republic served shorter tenures because people died younger. The second is senior status, a form of semi-retirement Congress has authorized since 1919 that keeps judges in the population being counted long after they would otherwise have retired.

Under the “Rule of 80,” established in 1984, a judge can assume senior status once age plus years of active service equal at least 80, with a minimum age of 65 and at least 10 years on the bench.⁷ Senior judges are not required to carry a full caseload, but many continue hearing cases for years. Collectively they handle around 15 percent of the courts’ annual workload.⁸ A 2023 report put the number of senior judges at 520, accounting for between 20 and 27 percent of all completed federal cases.⁵ More than 1,800 federal judges have taken senior status since the option was created, close to half of all federal judges appointed since 1789.

Presidents Are Appointing Younger Nominees

At the appointment stage, recent presidents have pushed in the opposite direction, choosing younger candidates to extend the reach of each pick. During Donald Trump’s first term, nearly two-thirds of his appellate appointees were 49 or younger the year they were commissioned, the highest share of any modern president.⁹ His youngest district court appointee, Kathryn Mizelle, was 33. Senator Lisa Murkowski said the Trump administration was “very clear in saying they wanted nominees who were younger.”

President Biden followed a similar pattern. About 53 percent of his appellate appointees were 49 or younger, and roughly 22 percent of his district court picks were under 45. His youngest, Jamar Walker and Bradley Garcia, were both 37 at commission.⁹ By comparison, only about a quarter of Barack Obama’s circuit picks and 38 percent of Bill Clinton’s were under 50. Trump’s second-term slate has skewed younger still: about half of the 33 nominees who had confirmation hearings in 2025 were 44 or younger, against a first-term median of 48.¹⁰

Why the Age Matters

The concern behind the numbers is cognitive performance. A 2010 ProPublica investigation catalogued specific instances of confusion and impaired judgment on the bench, and found roughly 12 percent of the 1,200 sitting district and circuit judges at the time were 80 or older.¹¹

A 2024 book by political scientists Ryan C. Black, Ryan J. Owens, and Patrick C. Wohlfarth, published by Oxford University Press and winner of the 2025 C. Herman Pritchett Award, analyzed thousands of judicial opinions and quantified age-related effects.² A judge around age 50 took an average of 46 days to circulate an opinion; a judge around 75 took 101 days. Older judges were more likely to copy language directly from lawyers’ briefs, more likely to defer to fellow panelists, and more prone to applying precedent along partisan lines. The oldest judge in the sample copied an average of 279 words from briefs, compared with 245 for a 40-year-old judge.¹²

The Pauline Newman Suspension

The most prominent recent case involves Judge Pauline Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In September 2023, the court’s Judicial Council unanimously suspended the then-96-year-old judge from hearing new cases, citing a “voluminous” record of cognitive issues and erratic behavior toward staff.¹³ Newman refused to undergo independent neuropsychological testing and sued to challenge the suspension. A federal district court dismissed the suit as meritless, the Judicial Conduct and Disability Committee affirmed the suspension, and it was renewed in 2024 for another year. In June 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her appeal.¹⁴

The federal judiciary has no mandatory cognitive testing. Oversight is handled informally by chief judges within each circuit, and the formal removal mechanism, a “certificate of disability” issued by a committee of peers, has been used only twice in the past two decades.¹¹ The Judicial Conference of the United States encouraged all circuit councils to form wellness committees in 2011, but as of 2018 most had not.¹⁵

Why Judges Can Stay This Long

Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution provides that federal judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” which has been read since the founding as life tenure removable only through impeachment. Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 78 that this was essential to judicial independence.¹⁶ Critics note that the system was designed for an era when life expectancy at birth was about 44 years, whereas justices appointed since 1990 have served an average of 26.3 years.¹⁷

How the U.S. Compares

The United States is nearly alone among major democracies in giving its highest-court judges life tenure. Most countries impose mandatory retirement, typically between 60 and 75, and constitutional court judges usually serve single fixed terms of 7 to 12 years.¹⁸¹⁹

Within the United States, 32 states and the District of Columbia enforce mandatory retirement ages for their own judges, typically between 70 and 75, with Vermont allowing service until 90.¹⁵ None of those rules reach federal judges, whose tenure is set by Article III.

Reforms Being Discussed

The most widely debated reform is staggered 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, letting each president make two appointments per four-year term. After the 18-year term, a justice would transition to senior status with reduced duties rather than leave the bench. The Brennan Center argues this could be done by statute, since justices would still hold office “during good Behaviour” in a senior capacity.²⁰ Polls since 2022 have consistently shown more than two-thirds of the public in favor, and President Biden’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court noted “considerable, bipartisan support.”

Many scholars argue the opposite: that removing a justice from active service after a fixed term would effectively be removal from office, in violation of Article III. The Congressional Research Service has concluded that a constitutional amendment is the “most legally sound route,” requiring a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.¹⁶

Several bills are pending. In December 2024, Senators Joe Manchin and Peter Welch introduced a constitutional amendment resolution establishing 18-year term limits, with a transition period preserving life tenure for current justices.²¹ In February 2026, Congressman Tom Barrett introduced H.J.Res. 145, a proposed amendment limiting all federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to a single 20-year term and barring reappointment to the same court.²² In May 2026, Representative Johnny Olszewski introduced H.J.Res. 174, proposing an 18-year cap for Supreme Court justices; it was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.²³ None has advanced beyond committee referral. Retired Justice Stephen Breyer has said he supports a fixed term of 18 or 20 years.

Other proposals that have drawn scholarly attention include mandatory confidential cognitive testing every five years, expanded retirement incentives, and additional funding for support staff to help aging judges manage their workloads.² Short of a constitutional amendment, incremental changes like these remain the most plausible near-term response to the age of the federal bench.

1
Harvard Gazette. Time for Mandatory Retirement Ages for Lawmakers, Judges, Presidents
2
University of Maryland. America’s Graying Judiciary
3
U.S. Courts. Judicial Vacancies
4
Center for Law, Brain & Behavior, Massachusetts General Hospital. How Can Aging Judges Know When It’s Time to Hang Up the Robe
5
Maryland General Assembly. Committee Testimony on Judicial Retirement
6
Federal Judicial Center. Age and Experience of Judges
7
Federal Judicial Center. Judicial Retirement
8
U.S. Courts. FAQs – Federal Judges
9
Gibson Dunn. Comments on the Impact of Young Judges in Biden’s Appellate Court Appointments
10
Bloomberg Law. Trump Judicial Appointments Slow as Vacancies Scarce for 2026
11
ProPublica. Life Tenure for Federal Judges Raises Issues of Senility, Dementia
12
Criminal Legal News. Study Reveals Aging Federal Judges May Experience Cognitive Impairment Affecting Their Opinions
13
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Special Committee Report and Recommendation
14
National Law Journal. Supreme Court Won’t Review Pauline Newman’s Suspension From Federal Circuit
15
Harvard University Law Review Online. How Old Is Too Old: Addressing Wellness in an Aging Federal Judiciary
16
Congressional Research Service. Supreme Court Tenure – Constitutional and Legal Considerations
17
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Supreme Court Term Limits
18
Federal Judicial Center. Judicial Tenure
19
Brennan Center for Justice. How Australia Set a Retirement Age for Judges
20
Brennan Center for Justice. Supreme Court Term Limits
21
IAALS. Updated Term Limits for the United States Supreme Court
22
Congressman Tom Barrett. Barrett Introduces Constitutional Amendment to Establish Term Limits for Federal Judges
23
Congress.gov. H.J.Res.174 Text