Two Houston federal judges are set to assume senior status in the coming weeks, creating vacancies for President-elect Donald Trump to fill.
But what is senior status, exactly? And what does it mean to take it?
There are three judicial statuses in federal courts – active, retired and senior.
According to Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, senior status is essentially a form of self-retirement. Senior judges typically take on a reduced caseload, though not always.
Federal judges who take senior status also create a vacancy for the current president to fill.
“When a judge goes senior, it’s a gift to the district because the district gets another judge and if you’re a busy district, that’s really helpful, not just to the court but to the litigants,” said David Levi, a former dean of Duke Law School and a former federal judge.
Senior judges, who must be at least 65 years old and have served for at least 15 years on the bench, can also decide the types of cases they handle.
“Some senior judges only take criminal, some senior judges only take civil,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. “There’s not a one-size-fits-all (approach).”
Federal district and circuit court judges, who have lifetime appointments, retain full pay and benefits when they go senior, according to Tobias, who added that they will sometimes time their designation change to coincide with whoever is in the White House.
Judge Lee Rosenthal of the Southern District of Texas, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, assumed senior status Sunday, one day after celebrating her 72nd birthday. Her colleague and fellow Houston judge, Andrew Hanen, who turns 71 on December 10, plans to do the same on January 2. Both Hanen, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, and Rosenthal announced their plans to assume senior status earlier this summer, indicating that they likely did not time their announcements to coincide with the winner of this year’s presidential election.
With the addition of Rosenthal and Hanen, Texas’ Southern District, which stretches from Houston to Laredo, will have four vacancies for Trump to fill.
Lynn Hughes became an inactive senior judge in February 2023, meaning he no longer hears cases. McAllen Judge Micaela Alvarez became a senior judge in June 2023. Texas’ Western District has two vacancies, and the Northern District has one.
According to TRAC, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, about 38% of federal district court judges are senior judges.
Five of the 12 district court judges in the Houston division of the Southern District of Texas — not including Rosenthal and Hanen — are senior judges. They are David Hittner, Kenneth Hoyt, Sim Lake, Ewing Werlein, and Gray Miller.
Hittner, Hoyt and Lake are all Ronald Reagan appointees, while Werlein is a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Miller is a George W. Bush appointee. Werlein, at 88, is the oldest of the group, while Hoyt and Miller are the youngest at 76.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
