Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking at a moment when threats against judges are on the rise, warned on Saturday that elected officials’ heated words about judges can lead to threats or acts of violence by others.
Without identifying anyone by name, Roberts clearly referenced Republican President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York when he said he has felt compelled to issue public rebukes of figures in both parties in recent years.
“It becomes wrapped up in the political dispute that a judge who’s doing his or her job is part of the problem,” Roberts said at a gathering of lawyers and judges in Charlotte, North Carolina. “And the danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that. And we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work. So I think the political people on both sides of the aisle need to keep that in mind.”
Roberts appeared at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judicial conference on the day after the Supreme Court issued the final decisions of its term, including a major victory for Trump that limits judges’ ability to use court orders with nationwide reach to block his agenda. C-Span carried Roberts’ conversation with Judge Albert Diaz, the 4th Circuit’s chief judge.
Roberts first took issue with Trump’s comments in 2018, when Roberts responded to Trump’s description of a judge who rejected his migrant asylum policy as an “Obama judge.” In March, Roberts rejected calls for impeaching judges, shortly after Trump demanded the removal of one who ruled against his deportation plans.
In 2020, Roberts called out Schumer for remarks that Roberts termed inappropriate and threatening after the senator said Trump-nominated Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch “will pay the price” for votes in a then-pending Louisiana abortion case. Schumer later said he should not have used those words.
Two years later, with the court on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protections for abortion, police arrested an armed man outside Kavanaugh’s home in suburban Washington. In April, Nicholas John Roske pleaded guilty to trying to kill Kavanaugh.