That was the recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Yovino v. Rizo, a case decided at the end of February. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had issued its opinion, which included the vote of Judge Stephen Reinhardt, eleven days after Reinhardt passed away in March 2018. The Ninth Circuit panel justified the decision to include Reinhardt’s vote by noting:
“Prior to his death, Judge Reinhardt fully participated in this case and authored this opinion. The majority opinion and all concurrences were final, and voting was completed by the en banc court prior to his death.”
The Supreme Court disagreed, explaining that federal judges “are appointed for life, not for eternity.”
Donald Scarinci has a nice breakdown of the opinion and the underlying case in The Observer.
The Interdependent Third Branch 