Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts warns against defying judiciary

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a warning on Tuesday that the United States must maintain “judicial independence” just weeks away 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 judicial work to make everyone happy. Most cases have a winner and a loser. Every Administration suffers defeats in the court system—sometimes in cases with major ramifications for executive or legislative power or other consequential topics,” Robert wrote in the 15-page report. “Nevertheless, for the past several decades, the decisions of the courts, popular or not, have been followed, and the Nation has avoided the standoffs 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 suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected. 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 land,’ yet it ‘is vulnerable to assault; it can be shattered if the society law exists to serve does not take care to assure its preservation.’”

“I urge all Americans to appreciate this inheritance from our founding generation and cherish its endurance,” Roberts said. 

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Roberts also quoted Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who remarked that the three branches of government “must work in successful cooperation” to “make possible the effective functioning of the department of government which is designed to safeguard 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 penned by Roberts, along with another high court decision halting efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot, were championed as major victories on the Republican nominee’s road to winning the election. The immunity decision was criticized by Democrats like Biden, who later called for term limits and an enforceable ethics code following criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices.

A handful of Democrats and one Republican lawmaker urged Biden to ignore a decision by a Trump-appointed judge to revoke FDA approval for the abortion drug mifepristone last year. Biden declined to take executive action to bypass the ruling, and the Supreme Court later granted the White House a stay permitting the sale of the medication to continue. 

The high 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 rebuked 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 recounting a story about King George III stripping colonial judges of lifetime appointments, an order that was “not well received.” Trump is now readying for a second term as president with an ambitious conservative agenda, elements of which are likely to be legally challenged 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 generally that 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 the Brown v. Board of Education decision that desegrated schools in 1954 as one that needed federal enforcement in the face of resistance from southern governors.

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

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

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

“Violence, intimidation, and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable,” he wrote.

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

The Associated Press contributed to this report.