Roberts rebuffs some criticism of Supreme Court decisions as ‘venting'

The Hill

2 days ago

Chief Justice John Roberts on Saturday said some public criticism of the Supreme Court's work is 'not terribly helpful,' dismissing it as 'venting' that only focuses on the bottom line.
'It would be good if people appreciated it's not the judge's fault that a correct interpretation of the law meant that, no, you don't get to do this,' Roberts told a crowd of judges and lawyers gathered at a judicial conference in North Carolina.
'And it may be an incorrect interpretation,' he continued. 'But if that's their criticism, then, of course, they can explain that, and maybe the court of appeals will take a different view.'
The chief justice added, 'But if it's just venting because you lost, then that's not terribly helpful.'
Roberts was not speaking to any specific decision, but his conversation with Albert Diaz, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit's chief judge, came one day after the Supreme Court handed down its final opinions of the term.
In a major victory for President Trump, the high court narrowed federal district judges' ability to issue universal injunctions, a battle that stems from Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship.
It was one of several 6-3 decisions along ideological lines the Supreme Court handed down on Friday. The conservative majority also upheld Texas's age verification law for porn websites and sided with a group of parents seeking to opt out their children from instruction that incorporates books with LGBTQ themes.
Roberts joined the majority in all three cases.
'What they're angry about or upset about is probably not that you applied the principle of ejusdem generis in a context in which it had not been applied before. It's that they lost whatever they were looking for,' Roberts said when asked how he deals with public criticism.
The chief justice in his remarks steered clear of discussing any of the court's opinions this year. But when asked, he acknowledged the frenzy that accompanies the end of the term.
'Things were a little crunched toward the end this year, and we try to space it out a little better next year, I suppose,' the chief justice told the crowd.