![\"John](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/GettyImages-55399887-300x201.jpg?resize=300%2C201&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n(Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
As Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts prepares a year-end report<\/a>, ostensibly to communicate with the American people \u2014 or Congress \u2014 about the state of the federal judiciary and his vision for the branch\u2019s future. His approach this year is to condescend to the public while ignoring every useful area of inquiry about the court system.<\/p>\n Because he thinks everyone is too stupid to care.<\/p>\n In the past, he\u2019s contemptuously told his audience that he\u2019s aware of widespread corruption in the judiciary but that his plan to fix it was \u201cf**k you, that\u2019s what.\u201d<\/a> When that didn\u2019t go over, he pivoted the next year \u2014 the year when we already knew that one of the justices had accepted at least half a million in luxury gifts under the table<\/a> and another took a private plane to vacation with a party with interests before the Court<\/a> \u2014 with a lengthy discourse on the history of typewriters<\/a>.<\/p>\n Roberts certainly holds the public in low esteem, but it\u2019s still amazing that he can\u2019t even muster the energy to pretend to respect them for a pamphlet he writes once a year. This year, Roberts abandons last year\u2019s trolling effort and saves us from a detailed lesson on the history of the Bates Stamp. Instead, he returns to flimsy claims, contradictions, and gaslighting.<\/p>\n He compares having a cross burned on a judge\u2019s lawn to mean people posting on Twitter!<\/p>\n Of course, attempts to intimidate need not physically harm judges to threaten judicial independence. In earlier times, these provocations usually were directed at judges\u2019 homes. Perhaps the most egregious example involved U.S. District Judge Julius Waties Waring. As a judge in South Carolina from 1942 to 1952, Judge Waring issued numerous rulings opening voting and educational opportunities for Black Americans. Local residents outraged by these decisions burned a cross in the judge\u2019s lawn, fired gunshots at his home, and hurled a large lump of concrete through his front window\u2026.<\/p>\n Today, in the computer era, intimidation can take different forms. Disappointed litigants rage at judicial decisions on the Internet, urging readers to send a message to the judge.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Methinks this analogy got away from him. But it\u2019s clear what he\u2019s trying<\/em> to do. He wants people to stop pointing out that Thomas got an RV paid for by a health care executive<\/a> or that Alito is coup curious<\/a>. So he wraps himself in the heroic robes of Judge Waring \u2014 a trick he often employs in these reports<\/a> \u2014 to suggest Reddit posts are the new cross burnings.<\/p>\n He assumes everyone is dumb enough to buy that.<\/p>\n His issue with intimidation is one of four areas of concern he highlights this year after a preamble where he claims the best thing about America is the fact that judges can be criticized. Now the \u201cI\u2019m not thin-skinned, but\u2026\u201d part of the report:<\/p>\n Unfortunately, not all actors engage in \u201cinformed criticism\u201d or anything remotely resembling it. I feel compelled to address four areas of illegitimate activity that, in my view, do threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends: (1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) threats to defy lawfully entered judgments.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Violence is obviously bad. Though it only makes its way into this report to poison the well by falsely equating routine criticism with violence. Indeed, he directly tries to blur the lines here and suggest that disgruntled Substack critic from above could promote violence.<\/p>\n Public officials, too, regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges\u2014for example, suggesting political bias in the judge\u2019s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations. Within the past year we also have seen the need for state and federal bar associations to come to the defense of a federal district judge whose decisions in a high-profile case prompted an elected official to call for her impeachment. Attempts to intimidate judges for their rulings in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed. Public officials certainly have a right to criticize the work of the judiciary, but they should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Except\u2026 impeachment is the constitutionally blessed mechanism for public officials to address judicial misbehavior. Roberts doesn\u2019t name the judge here \u2014 in a social media conversation with Reuters\u2019 Nate Raymond<\/a>, we questioned whether this refers to Judge Chutkan or Judge Cannon. The description Roberts concocts doesn\u2019t precisely fit either judge. Which might be why he leaves it vague as an empty signifier to either side of the Trump criminal case question.<\/p>\n \u201cSuggesting political bias in the judge\u2019s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations,\u201d is the height of bad faith. The Court is junking decades of precedent every term while enjoying vacations with right-wing activists. Will Roberts at least engage this issue?<\/p>\n No. Because pre-empting the best opposing arguments is good legal writing and the Roberts report is\u2026 not that.<\/p>\n Disinformation, even if disconnected from any direct attempt to intimidate, also threatens judicial independence. This can take several forms. At its most basic level, distortion of the factual or legal basis for a ruling can undermine confidence in the court system. Our branch is peculiarly ill-suited to combat this problem, because judges typically speak only through their decisions. We do not call press conferences or generally issue rebuttals.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cTypically speak only through their decisions\u201d says the guy running a Court that routinely changes the law without issuing written opinions<\/a>. Perhaps, if he\u2019s so concerned about disinformation, he could address the problems with the shadow docket and his plans to address those.<\/p>\n But he won\u2019t, because this is not a serious report.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen some online chatter that this might be aimed at Trump misleading his throng about court decisions. And while that might have been a concern, that evaporated with his reelection and the fully compliant judicial system he now enjoys.<\/p>\n More likely, this is a bid to undermine the public\u2019s faith in legal analysis. The public doesn\u2019t necessarily appreciate how much obfuscation exists in rulings by design<\/em> let alone when a judge affirmatively tries to muddy the waters. When a court tries to say \u201coh, we didn\u2019t really<\/em> do what the analysts are saying, we decided it on standing!\u201d the public relies on legal analysts to cut through this nonsense and explain what they\u2019ve actually<\/em> done.<\/p>\n The final threat to judicial independence is defiance of judgments lawfully entered by courts of competent jurisdiction.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is pure gaslighting. While this could refer to a lot of stuff, it seems most closely related to the judge shopping controversy that\u2019s given rise to conservative activists nullifying national laws by filing in jurisdictions like Amarillo<\/a> where a former right-wing interest group lawyer sits on the bench and is the only possible judge to hear the case.<\/p>\n There\u2019s not, in fact, a lot of conversation about wholesale ignoring court rulings. There is talk of not letting the FDA operate at the whims of a Texas judge elevated for his partisan leanings. In practice, the reform would take the shape of some kind of jurisdiction stripping effort to limit nationwide injunctions or force these cases about federal agencies into the D.C. courts. Which is a long way from \u201cdefiance of judgments lawfully entered by courts of competent jurisdiction.\u201d This seems an opportunity for Roberts to deal with this nuance.<\/p>\n He won\u2019t.<\/p>\n This is, theoretically, the judicial equivalent of the State of the Union address. Not that every State of the Union provides a wealth of details, but presidents do feel shamed into at least spinning the issues plaguing their administrations. Roberts goes the other way, with eight-and-a-half pages ignoring the collapse in public confidence in the courts and the ethical cesspool he\u2019s running and insinuating that everything is the fault of those pesky critics.<\/p>\n America should demand more from a Chief Justice. But it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n (Full report on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n This is neither here nor there, but in light of the term limits conversation, it\u2019s notable that Roberts opened the report reinforcing one of the great textual lies out there:<\/p>\n In December 1761, a little more than one year into what would be a fifty-nine year reign, King George III decreed that from that date forward, colonial judges were to serve \u201cat the pleasure of the Crown.\u201d This royal edict departed from the long-standing practice in England, enshrined by Parliament in the 1701 Act of Settlement, of allowing judges to retain their offices \u201cduring good behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is your periodic reminder that the Constitution does not<\/em> actually say judges enjoy life tenure. The idea that judges are destined to hold office for life is just the court\u2019s interpretation of the phrase \u201cduring good behavior.\u201d There\u2019s some historical support for this interpretation \u2014 Hamilton suggests the language means \u201cpermanent\u201d (query whether he would understand that term as life-long as opposed to shielded from at will firing) but there\u2019s also support for the alternative reading that \u201cduring good behavior\u201d is just an impeachment standard, to contrast it with the much higher threshold of proving \u201chigh crimes and misdemeanors.\u201d Essentially, it just means they can be impeached for just being a drunk. Or maybe\u2026 grossly mismanaging the judiciary that is the Chief\u2019s job? Food for thought.<\/p>\n \u201cGood behavior\u201d bars firing judges for no reason. Would it bar a neutral limitation of their term? Given that the structure of the judiciary is created by statute, is there any reason why active panels can\u2019t be limited to the most recently appointed group of judges (as long as those moved off the panel don\u2019t have their pay diminished)? These are good questions!<\/p>\n He will not engage them.<\/p>\n Earlier<\/strong>: John Roberts Once Again Uses Judiciary\u2019s Annual Report To Express His Utmost Contempt For The Public<\/a> 1<\/strong> 2<\/a>Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s not just that it’s disingenuous… it’s shabby legal writing too! The post Chief Justice John Roberts Thinks You\u2019re Stupid And He\u2019s Probably Right appeared first on Above the Law. (Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images) As Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts prepares a year-end report, ostensibly to communicate with the American people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":98941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/GettyImages-55399887-VEgMLN.jpeg?fit=594%2C397&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Chief Justice Wants You To Know He Has The Utmost Contempt For You<\/a>
Chief Justice\u2019s Annual Report Recounts 65-Year-Old Tale Of Judicial Heroism To Remind You There Isn\u2019t Any Today<\/a><\/p>\n
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Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n