US judge, 96, barred from cases for a year in fight over mental fitness

A judicial council said Pauline Newman of the US court of appeals cannot effectively discharge her duties due to disability

A 96-year-old federal appeals court judge has been barred from hearing cases for a year, after a panel said she refused to undergo medical testing amid concerns she is no longer mentally fit.

It was the latest development in an unusually public and bitter fight over whether Judge Pauline Newman should continue to sit on the Washington-based US court of appeals for the federal circuit that has sparked a lawsuit and turned judges against one another.