In sobering year-end report, chief justice laments litany of threats judges face, which he says put the rule of law at risk<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Violence, intimidation, disinformation and threats to disobey lawful court rulings are putting the United States\u2019 revered principle of judicial independence in jeopardy, the chief justice of the US supreme court<\/a>, John Roberts, has warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a sobering end-of-year report<\/a>, Roberts \u2013 seen as the leading rightwinger on the court\u2019s current six-to-three conservative majority \u2013 laments a litany of threats contemporary judges face in America\u2019s increasingly polarised political climate, which he says are putting the rule of law at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is of course no place for violence directed at judges for doing their job,\u201d Roberts wrote, explaining that he felt \u201ccompelled to address four areas of illegitimate activity that \u2026 do threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The four are violence, intimidation, disinformation and threats to defy the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Citing statistics from the US Marshals Service, Roberts said threats and hostile communications against judges had tripled in the past decade, with more than 1,000 serious threats against federal judges recorded in the past five years alone. Several had resulted in full round-the-clock security details being assigned to judges, while in extreme cases, some judges have been given bulletproof vests for public events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn 2005 and 2020, close relatives of federal judges were shot to death by assailants intent on harming the judges who had handled their cases,\u201d the chief justice wrote. \u201cMore recently, in 2022 and 2023, state judges in Wisconsin and Maryland were murdered, also at their homes. Each instance constituted a targeted attack following an adverse ruling issued by the judge exercising ordinary judicial duties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roberts also decried the recent online practice of doxxing, involving the release of private information such as home addresses and phone numbers. These incidents have led to angry phone calls to judges or even visits to their homes by disgruntled litigants, or on occasion by \u201can unstable individual carrying a cache of weapons\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That description appeared to reference an episode when an armed man was arrested near the home of Brett Kavanaugh, a fellow supreme court justice, following the 2022 ruling that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. The man, Nicholas John Roske, was charged with attempted murder and pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roberts also warned of the dangers of political interference, taking issue with \u201cpublic officials [who] \u2026 have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges \u2013 for example, suggesting political bias in the judge\u2019s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although he did not name names, the remarks could be viewed as an implicit criticism of Donald Trump<\/a>, who has assailed the integrity of various judges who have presided over multiple criminal and civil cases against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, Roberts rebuked Trump after the then president referred to a judge who ruled against his administration\u2019s asylum policy as \u201can Obama judge\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2020, Roberts condemned Chuck Schumer, the Democrats\u2019 leader in the Senate, for issuing a veiled warning against Kavanaugh and another supreme court justice, Neil Gorsuch, in a demonstration outside the court against some of its rulings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,\u201d Schumer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJustices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,\u201d Roberts\u2002responded<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report follows polls showing public confidence in the supreme court and the judicial system generally at record lows following a series of contentious rulings and ethics controversies surrounding several justices, including Clarence Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roberts omitted mentioning these issues in his report and was criticised by Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland who will take over as the party\u2019s ranking member of the House of Representatives judiciary committee when the new Congress is sworn in next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe chief justice does not discuss the elephant in the courtroom, which is the profound ethics crisis which has undermined the standing of the court across the country,\u201d Raskin told<\/a> the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Referring to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol \u2013 which he played a lead role in investigating as a member of a congressional select committee \u2013 Raskin added: \u201cI like the rhetoric of enforcing the rule of law against violence, intimidation and disinformation, but the supreme court completely let us down in a series of cases related to the defense of the rule of law against those forces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n