Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts warns against defying justice

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned Tuesday that the United States must maintain its “judicial independence” just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Roberts outlined his concerns in his annual report on the federal judiciary.

“It is not in the nature of judicial work to make everyone happy. In most cases there is a winner and a loser. “Every government suffers defeats in the court system – sometimes in cases with significant implications for the executive or legislative branches or other consequential issues,” Robert wrote in the 15-page report. “Nevertheless, in recent decades, the courts’ decisions, popular or not, have been followed, and the nation has avoided the stalemates that plagued the 1950s and 1960s.”

“In recent years, however, elected officials across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open defiance of federal court rulings,” Roberts said, without naming Trump, President Biden or any specific lawmaker. “These dangerous proposals, however sporadic, must be firmly rejected. The independence of the judiciary is worth preserving. As my late colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, an independent judiciary is “essential to the rule of law in any country,” yet it is “vulnerable.” to attack; it can be broken up if the corporate law it serves does not ensure that it is preserved.’”

“I call on all Americans to honor this legacy of our founding generation and appreciate its durability,” Roberts said.

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Roberts also quoted Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who noted that the three branches of government “must work together successfully” to “enable the effective functioning of the Department of Government designed to protect, with judicial impartiality and independence, the interests of liberty.” . .”

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor stand before President Biden’s annual State of the Union address to a joint session in the House of Representatives, March 7, 2024. (Shawn Thew Pool/Getty Images)

“Our political system and our economic strength depend on the rule of law,” Roberts wrote.

A landmark Supreme Court immunity decision penned by Roberts, as well as another Supreme Court decision halting efforts to disqualify Trump from the election, were hailed as key victories in the Republican candidate’s path to victory. The immunity decision was criticized by Democrats like Biden, who later called for term limits and an enforceable ethics code after criticizing secret trips and gifts to some judges from wealthy benefactors.

A handful of Democrats and one Republican lawmaker urged Biden to ignore a Trump-appointed judge’s decision to revoke FDA approval for the abortion drug mifepristone last year. Biden declined to take executive action to circumvent the ruling, and the Supreme Court later granted the White House a stay allowing continued sales of the drug.

The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, DC on February 5, 2024. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority also ruled last year that Biden’s massive student loan debt relief efforts constituted an illegal use of executive power.

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Roberts and Trump clashed in 2018 when the chief justice rebuked the president for calling a judge who rejected his migrant asylum policy an “Obama judge.”

In 2020, Roberts criticized comments made by Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York while the Supreme Court was considering a high-profile abortion case.

Roberts began his letter Tuesday by telling a story about King George III stripping colonial judges of their lifetime appointments, an order that was “not well received.” Trump is now preparing for a second term as president with an ambitious conservative agenda, elements of which are likely to be challenged in court and end up before the court, whose conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump during his first term.

In the annual report, the chief justice wrote broadly that even when court decisions are unpopular or represent a defeat for a presidential administration, other branches of government must be prepared to enforce them to ensure the rule of law. Roberts pointed to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which desegregated schools in 1954, as a decision that required federal enforcement in the face of opposition from Southern governors.

Chief Justice John Roberts (left) and Associate Justice Samuel Alito sit as they and the other members of the Supreme Court sit for a group photo at the Supreme Court Building on Capitol Hill on Friday, October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

He also said that “attempts to intimidate judges over their decisions in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed.”

While officials and others have the right to criticize rulings, they should also be aware that their statements “may provoke dangerous reactions in others,” Roberts wrote.

Threats against federal judges have more than tripled in the last decade, according to statistics from the U.S. Marshals Service. State judges in Wisconsin and Maryland were killed in their homes in 2022 and 2023, Roberts wrote.

“Violence, intimidation and disregard for judges because of their work undermines our republic and is completely unacceptable,” he wrote.

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Roberts also noted that disinformation about court rulings posed a threat to judicial independence, saying social media amplified distortions and could even be exploited by “hostile foreign state actors” to exacerbate divisions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.