Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said this week she hopes the court will eventually overturn its own 2024 ruling granting former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution, a decision she has long argued puts presidents above the law.
Speaking at a public event, Sotomayor referenced the recent midterm elections before turning to her critique of the court’s conservative majority. “We saw the outpouring of voters on Tuesday … I tell people all the time, there’s no excuse for not voting. There just isn’t. Apathy is not acceptable,” she said.
She then addressed her own record on the bench. “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 — maybe not,” Sotomayor said. “No, seriously. You know, 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.”
The case she singled out, Trump v. United States, was decided in 2024. The court’s majority held that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their core constitutional powers, along with at least presumptive immunity for other official acts. The ruling left no immunity for unofficial conduct, but tasked lower courts with sorting official acts from private ones.
Sotomayor dissented from that decision at the time, warning that the majority’s reasoning effectively made the presidency a “king above the law.”
Broader remarks on the court and democracy
Much of the hourlong event centered on civics education, but Sotomayor repeatedly circled back to the state of American democracy and the court’s direction. “There have been some systemic changes in my court’s jurisprudence in many areas of law,” she said. “We’ll settle down, too. Not quite sure when. But we will. And a new order will be established that people will begin to understand.”
She said restoring balance would take “some hard work,” adding: “There are some norms we may have lost forever. 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.”
Her comments come as Republicans assess losses in the midterm elections and as questions swirl over the ages of fellow justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both in their late 70s. Any retirement would now have to be navigated against a Democratic-controlled Senate, complicating efforts by President Trump to seat another conservative justice.
Add comment