Chief Justice Roberts warns against defying the judiciary

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts issued a warning Tuesday that the United States must maintain “judicial independence” just weeks from President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

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

“It is not in the nature of the judiciary to make everyone happy. Most cases have a winner and a loser. Every administration suffers defeats in the judicial system – sometimes in cases with major implications for the executive or legislative branch or other consequential issues.” Robert wrote in the 15-page report. “Nevertheless, in recent decades, court decisions have been followed, popular or not, and the nation has avoided the battles that plagued the 1950s and 1960s.”

“Within the past few years, however, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings,” Roberts said, without naming Trump, President Biden or any specific lawmaker. “These dangerous proposals, however sporadic, must be rejected with good reason. Judicial independence 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,’ but it ‘is vulnerable’ to assault; it can be crushed if the law of society is not there to ensure its preservation.”

“I urge all Americans to cherish this legacy of our founding generation and cherish its endurance,” Roberts said.

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Roberts also quoted Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who observed that the three branches of government “must work in successful cooperation” to “enable the efficient operation of the department of government which is designed to protect with judicial impartiality and independence the interests of liberty. . “

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

A landmark Supreme Court immunity decision authored by Roberts, along with another Supreme Court ruling that halted efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot, were heralded as major victories on the Republican nominee’s path to winning the election. The immunity decision was criticized by Democrats such as Biden, who later called for term limits and an enforcement code of ethics after criticism over undisclosed travel and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some judges.

A handful of Democrats and one Republican lawmaker urged Biden to ignore a decision by a Trump-appointed judge to revoke FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone last year. Biden declined to take executive action to circumvent the order, and the Supreme Court later granted the White House a stay that allowed sales of the drug to continue.

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

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

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

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

In the annual report, the chief justice wrote that in general, even if court decisions are unpopular or mark a defeat for a presidential administration, other branches of government must be willing to enforce them to ensure the rule of law. Roberts pointed to Brown v. The Board of Education decision that downgraded schools in 1954 as needing federal enforcement in the face of opposition from southern governors.

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

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

Threats against federal judges have more than tripled over the past decade, according to US Marshals Service statistics. State court judges in Wisconsin and Maryland were killed in their homes in 2022 and 2023, Roberts wrote.

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

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Roberts also pointed to disinformation about court rulings as a threat to judicial independence, saying social media can magnify distortions and even be exploited by “hostile foreign state actors” to exacerbate divisions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.