Editing Judge (section)

===Age and retirement===
In the United States, federal judges are appointed "for good behavior", which means in practice, that federal judges work until they die, voluntarily retire or are impeached.<ref>Douglas Keith, Impeachment and Removal of Judges: An Explainer, BRENNAN CTR. FOR JUST. (Mar. 23, 2018), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/impeachment-and-removal-judges-explainer</ref> The death of [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]] in the office in 2020 and suspension of [[Pauline Newman]] in 2023 reinvigorated the discussion about mandatory retirement age for federal judges, but such change would require a [[constitutional amendment]] and is unlikely to be implemented soon.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/supreme-court-retirement-age/616458/ | title=No Other Western Democracy Allows This | website=[[The Atlantic]] | date=25 September 2020 }}</ref>

States have more flexibility in establishing a mandatory retirement age for judges, as was confirmed by the [[SCOTUS]] in its 1991 decision [[Gregory v. Ashcroft]]. As of 2015, 33 States and the District of Columbia had mandatory retirement ages for State court judges, which ranged from 70 to 75 for most (but is as high as 90 in [[Vermont]]).<ref>William E. Raftery, Increasing or Repealing Mandatory Judicial Retirement Ages, NAT’L CTR. FOR STATE CTS., https://www.ncsc.org/sitecore/content/microsites/{{Dead link|date=January 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
trends/home/monthly-trends-articles/2016/increasing-or-repealing-mandatory-judicialretirement-ages.aspx (last visited Feb. 27, 2020).</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.governing.com/assessments/when-it-comes-to-judges-how-old-is-too-old.html | title=When It Comes to Judges, How Old is Too Old? | date=22 January 2021 }}</ref>

A 2020 study by the [[National Bureau of Economic Research]] found significant positive effects on the performance of state Supreme Courts with mandatory retirement age for judges. The authors advocated the adoption of mandatory retirement ages for all federal and state judges, although they felt, that the individual authorities should decide on the specific age for themselves.<ref>Mandatory Retirement for Judges Improved Performance on U.S. State Supreme Courts. 2020. E. Ash, W.B. Macleod. doi: 10.3386/w28025.</ref>