Chief Justice Issues Warning: Do Not Threaten The Judicial System With Violence

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued his annual report this week, and he attempted to head off the growing tendency among some citizens and politicians to violently interfere with the judicial system’s independence.

In the last two years, the Supreme Court has made rulings that have angered the political Left, from overturning Roe v. Wade and the Chevron Deference Doctrine to granting President-elect Donald Trump immunity from criminal prosecution for his conduct while in office. The Chevron Deference Doctrine stated that if federal legislation was unclear or left an administrative gap, the courts had to defer to the regulatory agency’s interpretation if the interpretation was “reasonable,” which allowed Democrats for decades to use executive agencies to circumvent the judicial system and institute leftist regulations.

“It is not in the nature of judicial work to make everyone happy,” Roberts wrote. “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. 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.”

“As Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, ‘(a) natural consequence of life tenure should be the ability to benefit from informed criticism from legislators, the bar, academy, and the public.’ Unfortunately, not all actors engage in ‘informed criticism’ or anything resembling it. I feel compelled to address four areas of illegitimate activity that, in my view, do threaten the independence on judges on which the rule of law depends: (1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) threats to defy lawfully entered judgments.”

Roberts quoted federal marshals who said they had investigated more than 1,000 serious threats against federal judges in the last five years. He mentioned two judges, one in Wisconsin and one in Maryland, who were murdered in their homes in the last two years.

Roberts wrote, “…disappointed litigants rage at judicial decisions on the Internet, urging readers to send a message to the judge. … Some of these messages promote violence …” He also spoke of critics doxing judges, imperiling them by revealing their private information.

Roberts stated that implementing more civic education would be a good antidote for the spread of misinformation about judicial decisions. He spoke of malign foreign actors, saying, “For example, bots distort judicial decisions, using fake or exaggerated narratives to foment discord within our democracy. In other cases, hackers steal information — often confidential and highly sensitive — for nefarious purposes, sometimes for private benefit and other times for the use of state actors themselves.”

“Although Roberts did not mention any of the ‘hostile foreign state actors’ responsible for such disinformation by name, the justices will hear oral arguments next week in a challenge to a federal law that would require social media giant TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell it off by Jan. 19,” Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog pointed out.

Roberts quoted William Howard Taft, who served as president before serving as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, saying, “Nothing tends more to render judges careful in their decisions and anxiously solicitous to do exact justice than the consciousness that every act of theirs is to be subject to the intelligent scrutiny of their fellow men, and to their candid criticism.”

“But violence, intimidation, and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable,” Roberts concluded.