Chief Justice Roberts warned against the court
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned Tuesday that the United States must preserve “judicial independence” just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Roberts explained his concerns in his annual report on the federal judiciary.
“It’s not in the nature of litigation to please everyone. Most cases have winners and losers. Every Administration suffers defeats in the judicial system — sometimes in cases with far-reaching consequences for the executive or legislative branch or other succession issues,” Robert wrote in the 15-page report. . “Nevertheless, over the past few decades, popular or unpopular decisions of the courts have been followed, and the Nation has avoided the confrontations of the 1950s and 1960s.”
“Over the past several years, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of blatant disregard for federal court orders,” Roberts said, without naming Trump, President Biden or any specific lawmakers. “These dangerous propositions, however sporadic, must be firmly rejected. Judicial independence is worth protecting. As my late colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, an independent judiciary is ‘essential to the rule of law in every country,’ but it is ‘fragile.'” , if the law of society does not take care to secure it, it may be violated; its protection.'”
“I urge all Americans to appreciate this legacy of our founding generation and appreciate its endurance,” Roberts said.
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Roberts also quoted Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes as saying that the three branches of government “must work in successful cooperation to make possible the effective functioning of a department of government designed to protect the interests of liberty through judicial impartiality and independence.”
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor stand on the floor of the House of Representatives before President Biden’s annual State of the Union address before a joint session on March 7, 2024. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
“Our political system and economic strength depend on the rule of law,” Roberts writes.
The Honorable Supreme Court immunity decision It was championed by Roberts, along with another high court ruling that halted efforts to remove Trump from the ballot, as major victories for the Republican nominee. The immunity decision was criticized by Democrats like Biden, who later called for term limits and an enforceable ethics code after criticism of undisclosed visits and gifts from wealthy philanthropists to some justices.
A handful of Democratic and one Republican lawmakers urged Biden to ignore a Trump-appointed judge’s decision to overturn the FDA’s approval for abortion. drug mifepristone last year. Biden declined to take executive action to circumvent the ruling, and the Supreme Court later allowed the White House to continue selling the drug.
The Supreme Court appears in Washington on February 5, 2024. (MANDEL AND/AFP via Getty Images)
The high court’s conservative majority also ruled last year that Biden’s massive student loan debt forgiveness efforts constituted an illegal use of executive power.
Roberts and Trump clashed in 2018 when the chief justice reprimanded the president for denouncing a judge who rejected migrant asylum policies as an “Obama judge.”
In 2020, Roberts criticized the Senate Democratic leader’s comments Chuck Schumer As the New York Supreme Court hears a high-profile abortion case.
Roberts introduced the letter on Tuesday by recounting the story of King George III stripping colonial judges of life appointments, an order that “did not go down well”. Trump is now preparing for a second term as president with an ambitious conservative agenda, elements of which are likely to be legally challenged and concluded before a conservative-majority court that includes three of Trump’s first-term appointees.
In the annual report, the chief justice generally wrote that even if court decisions are unpopular or cause defeat for the presidential administration, the other branches of government must be willing to enforce them to ensure the rule of law. Roberts pointed to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that desegregated schools in the face of opposition from southern governors as needing federal enforcement.
Chief Justice John Roberts, left, and Associate Justice Samuel Alito sit as they and other Supreme Court members pose for a group photo at the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
He also said that “attempts to intimidate judges for their decisions in cases are inappropriate and should be strongly opposed.”
Roberts writes that while public officials and others have the right to criticize decisions, they must also be aware that their statements “may provoke dangerous reactions from others.”
Threats targeting federal judges have more than tripled in the past decade, according to U.S. Marshals Service statistics. Judges in Wisconsin and Maryland were murdered in their homes in 2022 and 2023, Roberts writes.
“Violence, intimidation and disobedience against judges for their actions harms our Republic and is completely unacceptable,” he wrote.
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Roberts also stressed that misinformation about court decisions threatens the independence of judges, saying social media can be used by “hostile foreign state actors” to increase distortions and even fuel divisions.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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