NY Court of Appeals upholds mandatory retirement age for state judges

The New York Court of Appeals holds that the state's mandatory retirement age for judges -- 70 years -- is constitutional. The argument was that the retirement age -- in place since 1777 -- gets the kibosh due tot the recently-enacted Equal Rights Amendment adopted in 2024. The Court of Appeals disagrees.

The case is Miller v. State of New York, issued on June 18. The Court observes that the ERA does not specifically address the mandatory retirement, which is a strike against the plaintiffs' argument. The Court concludes that the ERA was never intended to repeal the age-limit. We got some classic statutory construction in support of this holding. Here is the summary:

The voters have spoken clearly since 1777 that judges may serve until they reach the constitutional age of retirement. That age limit has never been eliminated. For more than two centuries, the voters only modified the age limit, first during the Reconstruction era by raising the age to 70, and again in 1961, when the voters approved a certification process for certain judges and justices to serve to age 76. That limit has been fixed since then, with no ballot initiative to eliminate it and a failed effort in 2013 to raise the age to 80. The retirement age is part of New York's constitutional design. The State's voters, Legislature, members of the bench, and judicial candidates have understood that judicial service is limited in this specific way. Article I, § 11, as amended by the ERA, did not repeal article VI, § 25 (b). The retirement mandate stands. 

Not that I would expect anything less from the New York Court of Appeals, but this ruling represents remarkable self-restraint. The judges on this Court are directly affected by the retirement age, and as they grow older, they must realize that 70 is no barrier to effective judging. There are federal judges who sit on the bench through their 80's and 90's. Seventy is not what it used to be.