'Crazy things': Sotomayor hopes Supreme Court will reverse some of its rulings
WASHINGTON − Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Nov. 7 said she hopes the court will reverse some of the “crazy things” it’s done, including the blockbuster 2024 decision that presidents have immunity
for their official actions.
“There’s some opinions that I hope in my lifetime will get overturned. The immunity case is one of them,” said Sotomayor, who authored the dissent from the court’s three liberal justices to that decision.
She made the comments during a public discussion about civics education at the Washington Library at Mount Vernon.
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Sotomayor said she has sympathy for teachers whose job it is to explain what’s happening with the law, because “there’s been some systemic changes in my court’s jurisprudence.”
“I’m hoping that the court will take back some of the crazy things that it’s done. I’m only joking,” she said, before adding, “Maybe not,” and singling out the immunity decision.
In her vehement 2024 dissent, Sotomayor wrote that the decision “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”
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The 6-3 ruling upended the case against President Donald Trump over his attempts to subvert his 2020 election loss.
“The President is not above the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court’s conservative majority. “But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.”
Sotomayor’s public appearance came days after Trump’s party lost control of the House and the Senate and a majority of governorships as voters expressed dissatisfaction with the direction of the country.
The loss of the Senate means it will be difficult for Trump − who nominated three Supreme Court justices during his first term − to get an additional nominee confirmed if there's a vacancy.
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Asked at the public event how hopeful she is about the rule of law, Sotomayor said that it’s going through a “rough patch.”
“So many challenges to it on so many different levels. This is a really critical point in our history,” she said. “Every election now seems really important to people, because they are. And that sense of fear, I know, is not comfortable for many people.”
Sotomayor said the nation will “come out of this,” though it will be changed.
“There are some norms we may have lost forever,” she said. “But I don’t think that we will fail as a democracy. But I think we’re going to have a hard patch figuring out what that means.”