Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts Warns Against Defying Judiciary

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a warning Tuesday that the United States must maintain “judicial independence” just weeks before 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 judicial system, sometimes in cases with significant ramifications for the executive or legislative branch or others. important issues”. Robert wrote in the 15-page report. “However, over the past few decades, court decisions, popular or not, have been followed, and the Nation has avoided the confrontations that plagued the 1950s and 1960s.”

“However, in recent years, elected officials 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 lawmakers. “These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be roundly 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 country.” , but “it is vulnerable.” to attack; it can be destroyed if the society that the law exists to serve does not care to ensure its preservation.'”

“I urge all Americans to appreciate this heritage of our founding generation and value their resilience,” Roberts said.

DEMOCRATS LAUNCHED ‘CACULATED EFFORT’ TO UNDERMINE SCOTUS SINCE DOBBS, CBS REPORTER SAYS

Roberts also cited Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who stressed 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 impartiality and judicial independence the interests of liberty.” “.

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

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

An emblematic Supreme Court immunity decision written by Roberts, along with another high court decision that halted efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot, were championed as important victories in the Republican candidate’s path to election victory. The immunity decision was criticized by Democrats such as Biden, who later called for term limits and an enforceable code of ethics following 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 Trump-appointed judge’s decision to overturn the FDA’s approval for abortion. mifepristone drug last year. Biden refused to take executive action to circumvent the ruling, and the Supreme Court later granted the White House a stay allowing sales of the drug to continue.

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

The high court’s conservative majority also ruled last year that Biden’s massive efforts to forgive student loan debt constitute an unlawful use of executive power.

THE SUPREME COURT’S BIGGEST DECISIONS OF 2024: FROM PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY TO THE REVOCATION OF THE CHEVRON DOCTRINE

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

In 2020, Roberts criticized the Senate Democratic leader’s comments. Chuck Schumer in New York as the Supreme Court considered a high-profile abortion case.

Roberts introduced his letter Tuesday by telling a story about King George III stripping colonial judges of their lifetime 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 will likely 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 desecrated schools in 1954 as a decision that needed federal enforcement in the face of resistance 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 in the Supreme Court Building on Capitol Hill on Friday, Oct. 7 2022 in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

He also said that “attempts to intimidate judges over their rulings in cases are inappropriate and must be vigorously combated.”

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

Threats against federal judges have more than tripled in the last decade, according to statistics from the United States Marshals Service. State court judges in Wisconsin and Maryland were murdered 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 totally unacceptable,” he wrote.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Roberts also pointed to misinformation about court rulings as a threat to the independence of judges, 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.