WASHINGTON − Chief Justice John Roberts has some advice for anyone unhappy with the Supreme Court’s decisions.
“It would be good if people appreciated it’s not the judges’ fault that a correct interpretation of the law meant that, no, you don’t get to do this,” Roberts said at a judicial conference, the day after the Supreme Court handed down some of its biggest – and most divisive – opinions of the term.
In a public conversation with the chief judge of the Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Roberts did not discuss any of those decisions, which included a big win for President Donald Trump in his fights with judges who have blocked his policies.
Instead, the chief justice was asked how he deals with criticism.
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Roberts says he keeps in mind that each case has a winner and a loser – and the loser is not going to like the outcome.
“You’d like it to be informed criticism, but it’s usually not,” he said. “They’re naturally focusing on the bottom line: who won and who lost. You need to appreciate that that’s just the nature of what you do.”
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Chief Justice John Roberts poses during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., April 23, 2021. Erin Schaff/Pool via REUTERS
Sometimes, however, the criticism comes not from the party that lost, but from other justices.
In writing the conservative majority’s opinion that judges went too far when they blocked Trump’s changes to birthright citizenship from going into effect everywhere in the country, Justice Amy Coney Barrett had some strong words about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent.
“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” Barret wrote. “We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”
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Jackson wrote that the majority’s decision gives the president “the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate.”
“As a result, the Judiciary – the one institution that is solely responsible for ensuring our Republic endures as a Nation of laws – has put both our legal system, and our system of government, in grave jeopardy,” she wrote.
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Sharp divisions at the Supreme Court; sharp words as the year comes to an end
Roberts acknowledged that there can be sharp divisions among his colleagues and sharp adjectives employed, particularly at the end of the term.
But he said the justices all work hard to understand where they’re colleagues are coming from “to see if there’s some way to if not bring things together, make the resolution as helpful as possible.”
“It’s important to know, and understand, what Justice So-And-So is thinking about, because that will help you understand a little bit more about yours,” he said. “And that’s an interesting dynamic that plays out over the course of several months.”
Roberts also acknowledged that the court waited until the last days of the term to decide some of the biggest cases, saying they will try to spread things out more.
“Things were a little crunched,” he said, “toward the end this year.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chief Justice Roberts: Don’t blame judges for applying the law
