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Judge Newman Suspension Matter Transferred to 11th Circuit

By Kevin E. Noonan –

In many corners, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has come under criticism, justified or not, over the performance of the Court in the second Trump Administration. Last week, the Chief took steps that should be hailed (or at least appreciated) throughout the patent law community, when he transferred the long (too long)-running dispute over Judge Pauline Newman’s suspension to the 11th Circuit.

While the transfer decision was made on August 19th, that Circuit Court announced the transfer on October 6 (see Order below).

According to IP Law360, Chief Judge William H. Pryor stated that “[c]onsideration of whether to make additional materials public prior to the conclusion of the matter will be given as appropriate.”

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4 responses to “Judge Newman Suspension Matter Transferred to 11th Circuit”

  1. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    Is there an indication anywhere why this was transferred to the 11th in particular? Did Judge Newman request that circuit, or did Roberts pick it sua sponte?

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  2. Ron Katznelson Avatar
    Ron Katznelson

    Ben,

    Judge Newman requested (including of the Supreme Court) the transfer to another circuit for a long time.

    Now that the case is finally transferred to the 11th Circuit, Judge Newman’s colleagues would no longer serve simultaneously as her accusers, witnesses, and judges. The Complaint against her — that she was “unable to discharge all the duties of office by reason of mental or physical disability” — is baseless. Now, for the first time, a fact-finding of actual evidence comparing Judge Newman’s authored opinion productivity to that of all her colleagues on the bench would be required at the 11th Circuit.

    In this evaluation of the facts, the 11th Circuit will have to identify the Complaint’s bias in using prejudicial productivity standard that did not count authored dissents and ignored their role in reducing the dissenter’s participation in unanimous per curiam decisions that were counted.

    My detailed statistical study comparing the authored opinion productivity and timeliness of Judge Newman to that of her colleagues on the Federal Circuit found those to have been statistically indistinguishable. It also found the productivity of Judge Newman exceeded that of one judge on the court, and her average pendency for issuing majority opinions was shorter than that of three of her colleagues on the Court. My article is: “Is There a Campaign to Silence Dissent at the Federal Circuit?” (August 28, 2023). https://ssrn.com/abstract=4489143 .

    Ron Katznelson.

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  3. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    My concern was related more specifically to why the 11th in particular, not the where’s and whyfores of transfer in general. Specifically, the 11th has a bad history of, well, being strongly biased in a particular direction. That, in combination with there not being an obvious nexus between the controversy in general or J. Newman in particular, caused me to wonder if the selection of the 11th might have had some less than savory political motivation.

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    1. Ron Katznelson Avatar
      Ron Katznelson

      Regardless of concerns that the 11th Circuit “has a bad history of … being strongly biased in a particular direction,” have you considered that Chief Justice Roberts’ choice was actually designed to <i>avoid bias</i>, as the 11th Circuit Chief Judge Pryor himself went through a complaint in 2022 under the same statute of alleged judicial misconduct?

      I am actually encouraged by the 11th Circuit order, effectively saying the Circuit has assumed control over the core <i>original</i> complaint (FC-23-90015) as well as any pending or new complaints relating to the same subject matter. This means that it is bound to investigate the factual predicates, including false testimony, of the original disability complaint, which I address in my article.

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