Federal Judge Reverses Retirement Plan So Trump Can’t Fill Seat

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley will remain an active judge, he has informed the White House, reversing earlier plans to retire.

Marbley informed the White House of the reversal following President-elect Donald Trump’s win, the judge’s chambers confirmed to The Epoch Times.

Marbley, who was appointed under President Bill Clinton, said in October 2023 that he would move to senior status once President Joe Biden picked his successor.

Judges with senior status can still hear cases but typically have a lower workload. The status is known as semi-retirement. When judges move to senior status, the president nominates a successor, who will go on active duty.

Biden never nominated a successor.

“A successor has not been confirmed, and I have therefore decided to remain on active status and carry out the full duties and obligations of the office,” Marbley told the White House in a letter after Trump’s win, news outlets reported.

Senior status can be taken by judges who are 65 years of age or older and have served at least 15 years on the bench. There is no mandatory retirement age for federal judges, and they are not required to take senior status.

Beginning in the Bush administration in 2001, the majority of judges retiring during a presidential term were appointed by the same party as the sitting president, research has found. In the first two years of the Biden administration, 65 percent of the judges taking senior status were appointed by Democrats.

“Non-political alternative explanations—such as judicial capacity and caseloads, the financial benefits of going senior, and the presence of cross-party appointments—simply cannot sufficiently explain recent trends,” Northwestern Pritzker School of Law professor Xiao Wang, who conducted the research said.

The move by Marbley, who was sworn in on Nov. 10, 1997, means there will be no vacancies for Trump to fill at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Four of the eight judges on the court were nominated by Trump in his first term. One was nominated by Biden.

Two-hundred and thirty-eight of Trump’s judicial nominees received confirmation in his four years in office, including 174 U.S. District Court judges.

The Senate has confirmed 213 judges nominated by Biden, with several months left in his term.

There are currently 47 vacancies on the federal bench, with 17 Biden nominees pending confirmation.

In addition to Marbley, 19 other judges have said they will move to senior status or fully retire pending a successor being confirmed.