If a judge dies before a ruling is issued, their vote doesn't count. That's what the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, died last year at age 87. Eleven days later, he was listed as the author of the decision in a pay dispute case.
The 9th Circuit decided to count Reinhardt as a member of the majority, noting his opinion was finished before he died. But the Supreme Court said Monday that "federal judges are appointed for life, not for eternity."
The same goes for Supreme Court justices: Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, but the court didn't count his votes in cases that were still pending at the time of his death.
Without Reinhardt's vote, the majority opinion he wrote was only approved by five out of the 10 judges hearing the case, so the Supreme Court sent the case back to the 9th Circuit.
