Justice Sonia Sotomayor Hopes Supreme Court Will Overturn Presidential Immunity Ruling and Take Back 'Crazy Things'
WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said on November 7, during a public discussion on civics education at the Washington Library at Mount Vernon in Virginia, that she hopes the Supreme Court will overturn its 2024 presidential immunity ruling, saying she hopes the court will take back some of the "crazy things" it has done.
"I dissent a lot. I'm hoping that the court will take back some of the crazy things that it's done. I'm only joking," she told the audience, before adding, "Maybe not," and singling out the immunity decision. "No, seriously," she continued. "I've spoken openly about this, there's some opinions that I hope in my lifetime will get overturned. The immunity case is one of them."
She was referring to the court's 6-3 ruling in 2024 that former presidents enjoy at least presumptive immunity for their official acts, a decision that upended the criminal case against President Donald Trump over his attempts to subvert his 2020 election loss. Sotomayor authored the dissent from the court's three liberal justices, writing that the decision "makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law." Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that "the President is not above the law."
Asked how hopeful she is about the rule of law, Sotomayor said it is going through a "rough patch," with challenges on many levels, calling it "a really critical point in our history." She said the nation will come out of it, though changed: "There are some norms we may have lost forever. But I don't think that we will fail as a democracy." She also said she has sympathy for teachers who must explain what is happening with the law, because "there's been some systemic changes in my court's jurisprudence."
The discussion was part of a multi-day George Washington Symposium at Mount Vernon celebrating the country's 250th anniversary, and was hosted by Louise Dubé, chief executive of iCivics. Sotomayor serves on the board of iCivics, the civics education group founded by the late Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. According to The Hill, the appearance marked her first public comments on this week's midterm elections, which came days earlier and in which President Trump's party lost control of the House and the Senate and a majority of governorships.
(Source: U.S. Supreme Court)
Source: U.S. Supreme Court
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国最高法院大法官 Sonia Sotomayor 官方肖像。Steve Petteway 摄，美国最高法院收藏，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Official portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Photo by Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
