New York Times: ‘Egregious.’ ‘Brazen.’ ‘Lawless.’ How 48 Judges Describe Trump’s Actions, In Their Own Words

There have been more than 400 lawsuits brought against the Trump administration this year. Dozens of judges, appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents ...(including four by President Trump)... have ruled against the administration. And they have often used tough, blunt language.

Many Americans in positions of power, including corporate executives and members of Congress, seem too afraid of President Trump to stand up to his anti-democratic behavior. Federal judges have shown themselves to be exceptions. “Judges from across the ideological spectrum are ruling against administration policies at remarkable rates,” said Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University.

These rulings have halted Mr. Trump’s vengeful attempts to destroy law firms, forestalled some of his budget cuts and kept him from deporting additional immigrants. Yes, the Supreme Court has often been more deferential to the president. Still, it has let stand many lower-court rulings and has itself constrained Mr. Trump in some cases.

The bipartisan alarm from federal judges offers a roadmap for others to respond to Mr. Trump’s often illegal behavior. His actions deserve to be called out in plain language for what they really are. And people in positions of influence should do what they can to stand up for American values, as many judges have done.

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Trump turns on Federalist Society for recommending SCOTUS justices that won't fall in line with administration

The Federalist Society was the force behind Trump’s third of the Supreme Court. Now, MAGA wants to see the group’s demise, reported Politico.

Late Thursday evening, Trump attacked the conservative legal giant and Federalist Society’s former executive vice president Leonard Leo — a key figure in his judicial selections during his first term — calling him a “real ‘sleazebag’” in a Truth Social post. “I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” he wrote.

It was a remarkable souring on the nonprofit that supported Trump’s push to install hundreds of judges across the federal judiciary and tilt courts in conservatives’ favor.

But the president’s allies had been sowing discontent with Leo’s operation long before Trump publicly turned on his onetime adviser. Frustration had been growing among Trump and MAGA loyalists as a series of court rulings have hampered elements of Trump’s second term agenda — including by the Supreme Court, appellate courts and district courts — and by judges Trump installed on the bench during his first term with Leo and the Federalist Society’s guidance.

Now conflict is openly breaking out among the constellation of conservative judicial leaders that used to operate alongside one another.

“Nobody knew who Leonard Leo was before President Trump gave him a key role picking judges,” Mike Davis, a key Trump ally on judicial nominations who now runs the conservative advocacy group the Article III Project, said in an interview. “Leonard Leo took too much credit from President Trump and he got filthy rich then he abandoned President Trump, especially during the lawfare against Trump.”

On Friday, conservative activist Laura Loomer posted on X that she’s been warning for weeks that anyone from the Federalist Society shouldn’t be in Trump’s inner circle, arguing that the organization has sought to undermine him.

The Federalist Society did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Leo said in a statement, “I’m very grateful for President Trump transforming the Federal Courts, and it was a privilege being involved. There’s more work to be done, for sure, but the Federal Judiciary is better than it’s ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump’s most important legacy.”

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Trump’s judicial picks are “America First judges” who respect the President’s authority as opposed to “unelected politicians in robes.”

Founded in 1982 during Ronald Reagan’s first term, the Federalist Society has long been the preeminent conservative legal organization in the country. Members of the society can be found at all levels of government and the group has been widely credited with helping Republican lawmakers install conservative-minded jurists across the federal judiciary.

Leo and the Federalist Society have been boxed out of the judicial nomination process as the second Trump White House has begun to name jurists for vacancies. But the Federalist Society had already been making moves in anticipation of some tension with Trump, given his recent rhetoric on the judiciary, said one person in conservative legal circles granted anonymity because of the sensitive dynamics.

Whereas the former leadership was averse to involving the organization in politics, the new CEO Sheldon Gilbert has realized that the Federalist Society cannot be on the wrong side of a Republican White House and has been strengthening his connections around the administration, the person said.

Separate from his work with the Federalist Society, Leo also chairs conservative public relations firm CRC Advisors. CRC touts close ties to Trump — the firm’s clients are involved in White House policy discussions and several of the firm’s employees have left in recent months to join the administration with Leo’s “blessing and support,” said a person familiar with Leo’s operation, granted anonymity to discuss private dynamics.

Yet Davis, who says he advises the White House on judicial nominations, contended that Leo and his allies have sought to undercut Trump. He pointed to the recent nomination of Emil Bove, a top Justice Department aide, to sit on the Third Circuit as a flashpoint in the MAGA judicial wars.

The nomination has divided conservative legal circles between those cheering the potential elevation of Trump’s fiercest enforcer at the Justice Department and those concerned that the nomination forecasts Trump’s intent to nominate judges loyal to him during his second term. Prominent conservative legal commentator Ed Whelan, who has spoken at more than 200 Federalist Society events by his own count, vocally opposed Bove’s nomination, prompting social media pushback from administration officials and Davis allies.

 The groups that used to all share the same goal in Trump’s first term — getting conservative jurists on the bench — are now riven by the split that Trump widened even further with his Thursday comments.

“There’s a lot of people who voted for this president and followed him because they felt they could finally have judges who would read words and not make up what those words meant,” said John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance and longtime member of the Federalist Society. “And those people are on his side all this time, and they are often a useful resource, and why chase them away? Makes no sense to me.”

The New Civil Liberties Alliance is a libertarian non-profit that has challenged the president’s tariffs in court. The organization has taken funding from groups linked to Leo in the past, but Vecchione denies Leo having any involvement in the group’s tariff lawsuit.

For Trump’s allies, the Federalist Society now represents the old guard that “hide[s] behind a philosophy” instead of supporting the Republican cause, said one conservative consultant, who was granted anonymity in order to speak freely about dynamics in the Republican legal world. They want more people like Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and fewer people like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the person said.

Barrett, whom Trump nominated in 2020 to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has come under fire among the President’s allies in recent months after she sided with the court’s liberals and Chief Justice John Roberts in rebuffing a bid by the Trump administration to quickly block a court order requiring the administration to pay out $2 billion for past foreign aid work.

Barrett again faced a barrage of attacks when she joined the court’s Democratic appointees in dissenting from a decision that complicated efforts to mount a broad legal challenge to Trump’s bid to deport Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act. Her reputation among Trump’s allies has transformed from being known as a bonafide conservative to a so-called member of the liberal resistance to the president.

“They don’t want someone who’s just going to be like, ‘We’re going to follow the law and do the originalistic thing, and whatever the result is, so may be it,’” said the consultant. “They want someone [who] can figure out how to get the result that they want.”

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Justice Jackson says attacks on judiciary are designed to undermine the rule of law

 Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the Trump administration’s attacks on the judiciary are “not isolated incidents,” but are designed to intimate the judiciary and “impact more than just the individual judges who are being targeted,” reported Jurist. Justice Jackson further warned that the threats and harassment of the judiciary are an attack on US democracy and “ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”

Jackson added:

I am taking this point of personal privilege to reaffirm the significance of judicial independence and to denounce attacks on judges based on their rulings. A society in which judges are routinely made to fear for their own safety or their own livelihood due to their decisions is one that has substantially departed from the norms of behavior that govern in a democratic system. Attacks on judicial independence are how countries that are not free, not fair, and not rule-of-law-oriented operate.

Quoting former Justice Stephen Breyer, Jackson stated that judicial independence “is a matter of custom, habit, and institutional expectation,” which requires support not just from the judiciary itself, but from the community in which judges serve. Jackson also recalled that it is “easier to dismantle judicial independence than to attain it.”

Jackson then offered two ideas to ensure that judicial independence is preserved to protect the Constitution and the US public. First, Jackson recommended that judges take a more active role in educating citizens about what the judiciary does, and the importance of the role of judges in defending the Constitution and the rule of law. Toward this end, Jackson reminded that judges throughout the First Circuit are already engaged in civic education and community outreach work. Jackson credited Breyer again for his remarks on civic education and noted the useful insights given by Breyer on what can be said to help the citizenry “understand the connection between judicial independence and their own wellbeing.”

Jackson’s second suggestion is simply that judges “look inward and focus on supporting one another during these challenging times…and continually reminding ourselves of the core values that guide us in our daily work.” Acknowledging the stress that comes along with deciding a difficult case “in the spotlight and under pressure,” Jackson asked judges to look for strength in their historical role models who have faced similar challenges and navigated them with “duty, honor, and a clarity of conscience.” Jackson reminded everyone of the civil rights and Brown v Board of Education era, when lower federal court judges Frank Johnson and Skelly Wright—facing threats, public insults, and private violence in their communities—joined others in striking down bus-segregation and school-segregation and continued to issue integration orders. Jackson also spoke of lower federal court Judge John Sirica, who presided over cases related to the Watergate scandal during the Nixon Administration and who disregarded the political ramifications of his ruling, followed the facts and the law, and ruled against the very party who appointed him to the bench.

Jackson asked judges to think of these and other courageous role models in their own lives to draw inspiration and encouragement to stay on course and do the right thing for the good of the country.

The Trump administration has been noted from the very inception of his second term of consistently defying court orders and proceeding to carry on business as usual. Last month, federal judge John McConnell Jr. accused the Trump administration of defying his order requiring the federal government to release billions of dollars in federal grants after Trump’s attempt to freeze federal aid funding. Earlier this month, federal judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to explain the deportation of more than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 despite his previous order not to do so.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had already made note of these actions of defiance and reminded the Trump administration to reciprocate judicial respect for the executive with its own respect for the courts. The Trump administration’s attacks on judges have also prompted Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to speak out against the president in March.

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POTUS has not asked El Salvador to return illegally deported man

 According to The New Republic, President Donald Trump’s lawlessness is getting worse, but the public is now clearly rejecting it. Trump gave a new interview in which he made some striking admissions about the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia that only demonstrate how reprehensible his treatment of this whole saga has become. Meanwhile, new polling shows a large public backlash to Trump’s extra-legal tactics. We don’t think that Trump and Stephen Miller anticipated this public response. We think they thought they had successfully acclimated voters to their lawlessness. The opposite is happening. Yet all signs are that they’ll continue plunging us into this abyss. The New Republic interviewed Chris Newman, who’s one of the lawyers for Abrego Garcia’s family and is general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Here are some excerpts:

Question: President Trump was interviewed recently by Time magazine.  He was asked about Kilmar Abrego Garcia Trump, “Have you asked Bukele to return him?” Trump admitted, "I haven’t," and said his lawyers have not told him he has to. Chris, that’s an astounding admission. Your response?

Newman: Like everything, it’s difficult to interpret. On the one hand, it appears that Trump is softening and indeed backing away from the position of Stephen Miller, who appears to be higher on the organizational chart than his own vice president. On the other hand, it seems to be an admission as well that he’s violating the Supreme Court order because the order clearly said that he was supposed to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And the fact that he hasn’t tried seems to be a dead to rights admission that he is not complying with the order. From a political lens, it appears to reflect what is actually happening, which is public opinion is turning against Trump on this issue, and on immigration broadly. But as a legal matter, again, we continue to inch closer and closer to the proverbial constitutional crisis that people have been afraid of and some would even say—potentially rightly—that we’re already there.

Question: Well, he is currently defying the Supreme Court, which has again ordered him to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return and he’s not doing that. To your point, Chris, the Time magazine interviewers actually did press Donald Trump on the thing you raised. They said, Well, OK, if you haven’t asked Bukele to return him, then aren’t you violating the Supreme Court’s order to facilitate his return? Trump stammered and said something like, Well, the lawyers aren’t telling me I have to do that. They don’t really want to do that at this juncture. That strikes me as pretty damning. Trump is admitting it’s an option, but he’s not taking it.

Newman: Yeah, and it makes you wonder which lawyer, if any, he’s talking to. For example, is he talking to Erez Reuveni, the Department of Justice lawyer who admitted that Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported and then subsequently fired—seemingly because of that admission? Or is he talking to Pam Bondi? Or in fact, is he just making it entirely up and he hasn’t spoken to any lawyers at all? The fact is that we don’t know. And also the fact is that this is also part of this trick mirror thing where Trump is trying to make it seem like he ultimately is all three branches of government. It doesn’t really matter whether he’s spoken to lawyers or not. His administration must comply with the Supreme Court order.

Question: Right, and he was actually asked during the interview whether generally speaking he thinks he has to comply with the Supreme Court. And of course he said, I greatly respect the justices and so forth. I think that they may be moving toward compliance. I want to flag another moment from the Time interview. Trump was asked why he won’t just bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States and retry him for deportation through lawful channels. Trump answered: “It’s something that, frankly, bringing him back and retrying him wouldn’t bother me.”

But then Trump adds again that his lawyers “don’t want to do that” at this moment. To be clear, Chris, the administration does have the option of bringing him back and recontesting his withholding of removal status or seeking to deport him to a third country. Trump now just said flat out that he’d be OK with this. Well, what the hell are we waiting for then? How is this not a big deal?

Newman: Again, I don’t know. All we’re asking for is for Kilmar Abrego Garcia to get a fair hearing and due process that is entitled to all of us in the U.S. And then the chips can fall where they may. The fact that he’s being deprived of that and they continue to double down is not just something that’s putting Kilmar’s life at risk. It’s putting all of our rights at risk because, again, this is the proverbial test case as to whether or not Donald Trump can suspend core elements of the Constitution whenever he wants. And if he gets away with it on this case—because maybe the political winds are going this way or that way—there’s no question that there will be an erosion of constitutional rights for every single person in the country.

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Trump's DOJ is coming after journalists after attacks on judges, lawyers, colleges, universities and other dissenters

 The Justice Department reversed a Biden administration policy that prevented federal officials from seeking journalists' records and compelling their testimony in leak investigations. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated that reporters' records could be subpoenaed for reasons broader than unauthorized disclosures of classified information, according to an internal memo obtained by CBS News. Bondi said the reversal was necessary for "safeguarding classified, privileged, and other sensitive information." The memo also decried leaks that "undermine" President Trump's agenda. 

"This Justice Department will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump's policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people," Bondi said. 

"This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop," she said. 

Bondi said she supports a free and independent press and the Justice Department would only subpoena reporters' records as a last resort. Under the new rules outlined in the memo, subpoenaed journalists are entitled to advance notice, subpoenas are to be "narrowly drawn" and warrants should "limit the scope of intrusion into potentially protected materials or newsgathering activities." Bondi said she must approve all efforts to question or arrest journalists. 

During the Trump administration, prosecutors obtained the phone records of journalists at CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post as part of leak investigations, all three outlets reported in 2021, citing disclosures from the Biden-era Department of Justice.

In 2022, attorney general Merrick Garland issued regulations that restricted federal prosecutors from seizing reporters' communications records, except in rare cases.

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Federal courts create judicial task force for security and independence

A task force of federal judges will consider how to respond to “current risks” for the judiciary, following a spate of threats against judges who have ruled against the Trump administration, reported The New York Times.

According to an internal two-page memo distributed to federal judges and obtained by The New York Times, the new Judicial Security and Independence Task Force will hold its first meeting within the next 10 days.

The announcement comes days after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a rare statement rebuking calls for impeaching judges. President Trump and his allies have repeatedly called for the removal of judges who have issued rulings halting or slowing the adoption of his agenda.

The formation of the task force is another sign that the judicial branch is taking seriously an increasingly hostile and politicized climate. In recent weeks, there have been hoax reports of bombs placed in mailboxes. Pizzas have also been anonymously sent to judges’ homes and the homes of their family members, which security experts have said is intended to send a menacing message that the public knows where they live.

On social media, allies of President Trump have shared posts that purport to contain the personal information of judges’ families. Elon Musk and prominent Republican lawmakers have singled out specific judges and called on Congress to impeach them.

In a statement, a White House spokesman condemned “attacks on public officials, including judges.” Such attacks “have no place in our society and President Trump knows all too well the impact of callous attacks, having faced two assassination attempts,” said Harrison Fields, the spokesman.

Threats against public officials have been rising for years.

Democrats have also used heated rhetoric on judges and their rulings. “You have unleashed the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York outside the Supreme Court in 2020, as the court was considering a major abortion case. “I shouldn’t have used the words I did,” Mr. Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said later, after Chief Justice Roberts condemned his remarks.

According to the memo, the intent of the task force will be “to identify and help” the judicial branch “respond to current risks, and to anticipate new ones.”

“Through its efforts, it is hoped that the security of individual judges will be enhanced and that judicial independence will be assured,” the memo said.

The memo names 10 judges and one circuit executive who will be serving on the task force, with two more court clerks to be announced. Judge James K. Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland will serve as the new group’s chair.

It was signed by Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., who oversees the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which helps oversee the system under the direction of the Judicial Conference, a policymaking body led by Chief Justice Roberts. The office declined to comment.

The establishment of the task force is an encouraging step, said Judge Michael Ponsor of the U.S. District Court for the District Massachusetts, who has written on recent threats against the judiciary. “This is a welcome initiative and a powerful expression of the judiciary’s concern and its determination to do the job that our Constitution sets out for it,” he said.

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Judges not in line with Administration subjected to threats and intimidation

Federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration this year are confronting a wave of threats, potentially compromising their personal safety and the independence of the judiciary.

The sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a bomb threat earlier this month, and lower court judges who hit pause on some of President Trump's efforts to dismantle federal agencies and programs have been singled out on social media, reported NPR.

Republican lawmakers close to the president even have proposed impeachment proceedings against a few of those judges, who serve for life.

Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency making cuts to federal agencies, himself has repeatedly posted on social media about impeaching judges who delay or block parts of Trump's agenda.

Efforts to undermine the judiciary come at the same time the Trump administration has moved to fire lawyers inside the Justice Department and the Pentagon, penalize private law firms who represented clients Trump does not like, and to back away from participation in the activities of the American Bar Association.

Judge Richard Sullivan, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said in his lifetime four federal judges have been killed in retaliation for their work on the bench.

"This is not hypothetical," Sullivan, who leads a Judicial Conference panel on security issues, told reporters in a news conference this week. The Judicial Conference is a representative body of federal judges that frames policies for courts. "It's real. It's happened before. We have to be certain that it doesn't happen again," he said.

The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary group of more than 1,000 judges across the nation, said the judiciary plays a "critical role in preserving democracy and a law-abiding society."

"Judges must be able to do their jobs without fear of violence or undue influence," the group said in a written statement to NPR.

Early threats

One thing stands out to legal experts: these attacks on judges are coming at a very early stage in the legal process — often, before the Supreme Court weighs in as the final decider.

"We have a system of justice that allows for appeals," Judge Jeffrey Sutton, chief judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, told reporters this week. "That's typically the way it works. Impeachment is not and shouldn't be a short-circuiting of that process. And so it is concerning if impeachment is used in a way that is designed to do just that."

Only 15 federal judges have faced impeachment, mostly for allegations of wrongdoing such as bribery, corruption or perjury, in the past couple of centuries.

Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the odds of a successful judicial impeachment are pretty low, and to remove a judge from the bench would require a two-thirds vote from the Senate.

"The more that people like Elon Musk are putting on the wall the idea that it's appropriate to attack these judges for nothing more than ruling against the federal government, the more that we're normalizing what really are in the main very serious threats to judicial independence," Vladeck said.

"Jeopardize the rule of law"

But Paul Grimm, who spent 26 years as a federal judge, said even the threat of impeachment can amount to intimidation.

"And if you try to intimidate judges, if that's your goal, so that they do not do their constitutional duty, then you jeopardize the rule of law," said Grimm, who leads the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. "And without the rule of law, every liberty and every right that we cherish as Americans is vulnerable."

Grimm said he worries a lot about online posts that display the home and work addresses of judges and their adult children, a step that he said "crosses the line."

Nearly five years ago, an angry litigant shot and killed the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey.

In 2022, a California man carrying a gun and zip ties traveled to the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He turned away after spotting a security detail there. The man has pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted assassination of the justice, and awaits trial this year.

And in 2023, a state court judge in Maryland was gunned down in his driveway.

Attacks over rulings

The U.S. Marshals say threats against federal judges have doubled in recent years, according to the most recent data. And those threats have been directed at both Democratic and Republican judges.

Justice Barrett came under withering criticism this month from some right-wing political commentators, after she voted alongside Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberals on the high court against Trump's effort to freeze foreign aid.

Lower court judges have faced online attacks for their early rulings on Musk's DOGE team, efforts to restore government web pages and the freeze on foreign aid.

The Marshals protect judges, but they also report to the U.S. attorney general, not to the courts themselves. That's got some members of Congress on alert.

"A judge's security is dependent in many ways on the Marshals Service who the president appoints to protect the judges, and if a president doesn't like a decision that's coming from a judge, theoretically they could pull their security," Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, said at a congressional hearing this month.

The administration has already yanked protection this year from former military and national security officials who disagreed with Trump in his first term.

Swalwell said Congress should consider giving judges their own security force — one that's independent from the White House.

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Chief Justice: Reject 'dangerous' talk of ignoring court rulings

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts slammed what he described as “dangerous” talk by some officials about ignoring federal court rulings, using an annual report weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office to stress the importance of an independent judiciary, reported CNN.

Officials “from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings,” Roberts wrote in the report, released by the Supreme Court on Tuesday. “These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.”

The chief justice didn’t detail which officials he had in mind – and both Republicans and Democrats have hinted at ignoring court rulings in recent years. Still, Roberts’ year-end message landed days before the January 20 inauguration of a president who has repeatedly decried the federal judiciary as rigged.

Trump’s agenda – particularly on immigration – could put the incoming president on a collision course next year with a Supreme Court he has helped to build by naming three conservative justices during his first term.

“Every administration suffers defeats in the court system – sometimes in cases with major ramifications,” Roberts wrote. And yet, he added, “for the past several decades,” both parties have respected court decisions and have headed off the kind of constitutional confrontations that arose during the civil rights era when some southern states declined court orders to integrate.

Roberts, in particular, pointed to decisions by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations to enforce school desegregation rulings. In 1957, for instance, President Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to integrate its schools after officials sought to defy Supreme Court decisions that found segregated schools unconstitutional.

Roberts lamented that “public officials,” whom he also did not name, had “regrettably” attempted to intimidate judges by “suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.” Those attempts, he warned, are “inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed.”

As in past years, the chief justice avoided direct mention of the controversies and challenges brewing within the Supreme Court itself – including lingering questions about ethics, a weekslong scandal this year over controversial flags hoisted at Justice Samuel Alito’s properties and sagging public confidence in the nation’s highest court.

In a series of interviews before the election, Vice President-elect JD Vance raised doubts about his fidelity to Supreme Court decisions. In a 2021 podcast, as The New York Times previously reported, Vance urged Trump to respond to adverse court rulings “like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

The likely apocryphal quote came in response to an 1832 decision Jackson opposed that dealt with Native Americans.

Trump himself has often blasted federal courts – including the Supreme Court – over adverse decisions. A spokesman for Trump’s campaign earlier this week slammed the “political weaponization of our justice system” in a response to a federal appeals court ruling in New York that upheld a jury’s verdict finding that the former president sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll.

Democrats, too, have toyed publicly with declining to enforce court decisions. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew criticism last year for suggesting on CNN that the Biden administration “ignore” a district court decision that would have halted Food and Drug Administration of the abortion pill mifepristone. The Supreme Court paused that decision and, in June, tossed the lawsuit challenging wider access to the drug.

Roberts has repeatedly used his year-end report to tout the importance of an independent judiciary and to sound an alarm about threats of violence against judges. Two years ago, in a similar vein, he stressed that “a judicial system cannot and should not live in fear.”

In this year’s report, Roberts added that “hostile foreign state actors” had accelerated attacks on the judiciary and other branches. In some instances, he said, “bots distort judicial decisions, using fake or exaggerated narratives to foment discord within our democracy.”

The report lands at the end of a year in which the conservative 6-3 majority granted former presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution – and on a timeline that allowed Trump to avoid a trial on federal charges in two cases before the November election. This fall, the court is delving into transgender care bans and a First Amendment challenge to a bipartisan ban on TikTok.

“The role of the judicial branch,” Roberts wrote, is “to say what the law is.”

But, he added, “judicial independence is undermined unless the other branches are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.”

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Why do so many people go to jail based on junk science?

Steve Kennedy writes for The New Republic:

Judges and juries are supposed to weigh evidence from scientific experts presenting the most current version of the scientific consensus in their areas of expertise. So how do so many people keep going to jail based on junk science?

Part of the blame lies with judicial arrogance. Contrary to our mythology around the judiciary, judges are not objective observers and often struggle to remove personal and societal biases from their analyses of the cases before them. Despite not being scientists, judges, led by the U.S. Supreme Court, have concentrated power in themselves at the expense of reliance on scientific expertise.

Although the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron deference by courts to agency experts, does not impact courtroom deliberations directly, it provides a glimpse into this all-consuming arrogance of the judiciary—and its misaligned confidence in its ability to discern truth, despite both empirical and anecdotal evidence of its inability to do so effectively. The stakes for criminal defendants could not be higher.

And we are currently in a face-to-face crisis with the high costs of this arrogance. Robert Roberson has been on death row in Texas since 2003 after being found guilty of murdering his 2-year-old daughter via “shaken baby syndrome.” The problem? The entire premise of shaken baby syndrome, or SBS, has been seriously discredited.

Defendants convicted under shaken baby syndrome theories, including Roberson, have been challenging their convictions based on these scientific developments, and some have even been successful. However, despite decades of evidence that SBS cannot be accurately diagnosed as its own disorder or injury, Roberson is set to be the first person in the United States executed because of the mythology that’s been erected around SBS. Even though Roberson has a legitimate claim to make against his conviction, which has earned bipartisan support in Texas and nationwide, the Texas Supreme Court paid all of this no heed, recently clearing the way for Roberson’s execution without the opportunity for a new trial.

Unfortunately, our courts’ willingness to accept lethal junk science is not restricted to SBS. The problem is so widespread that, in recent years, Texas and six other states have passed laws allowing defendants to appeal their convictions on the basis of advancements in science to ensure no one remains in prison over faulty evidence and theories. Nevertheless, some legislators say that the law is not being properly applied in Roberson’s case.

The steadfast unwillingness to reckon with the faulty science that may send a man to his death also flies in the face of what other states have done to curb the destructive effects of junk science. Elsewhere, courts have established higher standards, holding that certain scientific evidence—such as the faulty theories of drug recognition experts—may not be used as evidence. The lack of uniform standards where science is concerned is especially galling. Roberson and others stand to potentially lose their freedoms, livelihoods, and their lives, solely due to a fluke in geography.

Despite the positive developments that have peppered the legal and literal landscape, courts continue to rely on disputed forensic techniques, which has led to thousands of defendants spending time in prison on faulty evidence. According to the Federal Rules of Evidence, expert testimony must be the “product of reliable principles and methods” to be admissible. However, for decades, courts have relied on testimony about bite-mark analysis, despite the fact that the judge who presided over the case in which its use was originally sanctioned has since conceded that the technique had not been proven to be scientifically reliable.

This is far from the only popularized form of forensic technique that has withered under the weight of scientific inquiry. A report by the National Academy of Sciences has suggested that blood-spatter analysis is unreliable and should not be used; courts still accept it as evidence anyway. And 911 call analysis—a thoroughly bizarre technique that proceeds from the belief that a linguistic analysis of callers’ “speech patterns” can reliably reveal criminal culpability—has contributed to many criminal convictions despite having no scientific basis at all.

Beyond being unreliable, admitting junk science as evidence at trial also introduces racial bias into the proceedings. Several forensic techniques have been shown to be applied in a manner that is more likely to implicate racial minorities. For example, one study showed that Black babies were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with SBS than others, implicating their caregivers in their deaths.

The problem of courts admitting junk science into evidence has gotten so bad that Justice Sonia Sotomayor called it out in a statement after the denial of review for a case relying on bite-mark analysis: “Thousands of innocent people may currently be incarcerated despite a modern consensus that the central piece of evidence at their trials lacked any scientific basis.” However, she did not sound a hopeful note about federal courts addressing the problem anytime soon. Rather, she encouraged state legislatures to pass laws to facilitate review of convictions based on junk science. Some may take up that cause; this will only ensure that the nation’s patchwork set of standards remains the status quo.

In the absence of federal legislation that might bring order and uniformity to the tattered quilt of scientific standards under which we now reside, judges need to start placing more restrictions on the use of unproven forensic techniques as evidence in their courtrooms. The Federal Rules of Evidence provide judges with significant discretion over what expert testimony to admit at trial. Furthermore, judges should make independent determinations about which techniques are scientifically sound rather than relying on other courts’ precedents alone, which allows for mistakes by even a single judge to proliferate across the court system. To make fair assessments of these methods, judges need training in how to analyze scientific techniques, and they need to defer to scientific experts in the field rather than professional forensics witnesses selling their techniques as reliable without empirical evidence.

The stakes for defendants like Robert Roberson are too high for judges to allow unreliable, biased techniques into their courtrooms. Based on current judicial attitudes toward science, perhaps this is naïve, but we must expect better from our legal system or innocent people will continue to spend decades behind bars or even be executed, not because they did anything wrong but because we couldn’t be bothered to find the truth.

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The U.S. is inching toward a gerontocracy, a society in which elderly people rule

When Democrats decided after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance that he was no longer fit to serve at the top of the ticket, a multifaceted pressure campaign was able to convince him to step aside, reported NBC News.

But federal judges, as well as Supreme Court justices, have lifetime appointments and there is no easy process for easing them aside.

At the age of 97, Judge Pauline Newman is the oldest full-time federal judge on the bench, but despite concerns about her ability to do the job, her colleagues are struggling to get rid of her.

With people generally living longer, a lifetime appointment can now last many decades. The average age of a federal judge is 69, according to a recent study, and there is no clean way to force someone to step down.

“That’s a feature, not a bug,” said Greg Dolin, a former Newman law clerk who is now working as her lawyer. “There’s no way to get rid of a judge, but I don’t think that’s something to amend. That’s something to celebrate.”

On the other hand, some judges have no wish to stay on the job for life out of fear they may lose their faculties, and courts have put measures in place to assist them.

“The judges are engaged in very challenging work. We have a responsibility to the public to try to be at our best both mentally and physically as we perform and discharge those duties that can have very wide impact,” said Judge Phyllis Hamilton, a long-serving federal district judge in Northern California.

Acute problem

Pressure on judges to retire often becomes public only when it concerns a Supreme Court justice. When President Barack Obama was in office, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rebuffed calls from liberals that she step down. At the time, she was in her early 80s and had faced multiple bouts of cancer.

She died in September 2020 at the age of 87, giving then-President Donald Trump the chance to replace her with staunch conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a huge change that shifted the court to its current 6-3 conservative majority.

While the Supreme Court attracts the most attention, “the problem is probably even more acute” on lower courts because of the sheer number of judges, said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a judiciary watchdog.

As of last year, there were 870 active federal judges, including the nine Supreme Court justices and judges serving on the 13 appeals courts and the 94 district courts, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Of those, 70 district judges and 34 appeals court judges are eligible to take senior status, whereby judges take on a lesser role but maintain their title, or retire on full pay, according to an NBC News analysis of data on judges from the Federal Judicial Center, the research arm of the judiciary.

It is not just in presidential races and the judiciary where advancing age is a factor. The average age of members of Congress has also risen, reaching almost 60 for members of the House of Representatives and 64 for senators, according to the Congressional Research Service. Last year, the focus fell on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who showed signs of cognitive decline while in office before dying in September at the age of 90.

It has led some to claim that the United States is inching toward becoming a gerontocracy, a society in which elderly people are in charge.

“I think there’s something special for old people who, once they’ve enjoyed a lot of power, fear irrelevance and neglect if they give it up — you know, they’ll be less important, and they’ll be marginal,” said Samuel Moyn, a law and history professor at Yale University who recently wrote an article on the issue. “I think there’s a gerontocratic crisis across all branches of government and frankly many other places too.”

In the judiciary, Newman is just one of 14 judges still listed as actively hearing cases on a full-time basis and who are older than Biden, according to the NBC News survey.

By coincidence, all three of the oldest active judges sit on the same appeals court. Joining Newman are Judge Alan Lourie, 89, and Judge Timothy Dyk, 87.

At the district court level, Judge David Hurd of the Northern District of New York, who turned 87 this year, is the oldest active judge, according to the Federal Judicial Center data. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999 and recently announced plans to take senior status. He had previously rescinded a pledge to step aside.

The second oldest is Massachusetts-based Judge Nathaniel Gorton, born in 1938, who was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1992. (The Federal Judicial Center database includes year of birth but not specific dates.)

The judges all declined interview requests.

Hundreds more aging judges are still in office but have taken senior status. The judiciary does not have exact numbers on how many senior judges are still actively working on cases, but a 2023 judicial business report said there are 520 senior judges who have staff assigned to them, indicating that they are conducting at least some judicial duties.

These so-called “active” judges are the ones who get more scrutiny about stepping down, or refusing to do so, because when they announce their retirement, the president gets to pick a much younger replacement.

Leaving active status does not necessitate giving up the judicial salary. Under judiciary rules, any judge can retire or take senior status at age 65, which means they still get paid as long as they have served for 15 years.

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California takes on homelessness and mental illness

A new initiative, called CARE Court — for Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment — is a cornerstone of California’s latest campaign to address the intertwined crises of mental illness and homelessness on the streets of communities up and down the state, reported The New York Times.

Another piece of the effort is Proposition 1, a ballot measure championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and narrowly approved by California voters this month. It authorizes $6.4 billion in bonds to pay for thousands of treatment beds and for more housing for the homeless — resources that could help pay for treatment plans put in place by CARE Court judges. 

And Mr. Newsom, a Democrat in his second term, has not only promised more resources for treatment but has pledged to make it easier to compel treatment, arguing that civil liberties concerns have left far too many people without the care they need.

So when Ms. Collette went to court, she was surprised, and disappointed, to learn that the judge would not be able to mandate treatment for Tamra.

Instead, it is the treatment providers who would be under court order — to ensure that medication, therapy and housing are available in a system that has long struggled to reliably provide such services.

“I was hoping it would have a little more punch to it,” Ms. Collette said. “I thought it would have a little more power to order them into some kind of care.” 

Yet it seemed like her only option, so she made the petition and hoped.

CARE Court is Mr. Newsom’s bid to balance the very public and very political problem of homelessness with profound questions about individual rights in a country that for generations forced people with severe mental illness into dangerous, dysfunctional institutions.

Under Gov. Ronald Reagan, California led the country in a national movement to end widespread practice of committing the mentally ill to state institutions. But like the rest of the country, the state didn’t ensure that adequate resources were shifted to community services.

Mr. Newsom, in signing the legislation that set up the new courts, nodded to this history, calling it California’s “original sin.”

That failure helped seed the crisis that plays out in city after city.

The state’s growing homeless population — just over 180,000 people, according to federal statistics, more than a quarter of the nation’s homeless — has city parks and spaces underneath freeway overpasses bulging with encampments, and those clearly in mental distress are a common sight in communities up and down the state.

“Continue to do what you’ve done, and you’ll get what you’ve got,” Mr. Newsom said when he signed the CARE Court legislation. “And look what we’ve got. It’s unacceptable.”

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A tell of two courts: A clear double standard for Jurists

North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls could be ousted from her seat for judicial ethics violations, reported Slate. Did she fail to disclose gifts from a billionaire benefactor on whose cases she was ruling? No. Maybe she’d gone on luxury vacations across the globe paid for by some of the richest men in the country and neglected to mention them on disclosure forms? Nope. Perhaps one of these billionaires bought her mom a house? Not that either. 

Her true crime: Earls, the only Black woman on North Carolina’s high court, spoke out about racial bias in her courtroom. Her alleged misconduct was speaking to the media about how few clerks of color the court employed and how her colleagues treated certain attorneys, including a Black woman, who argued before them. For that, a Republican-stacked judicial “ethics” commission has gone after her. Its targeting of Earls could fulfill the wishes of the gerrymandered Republican Legislature by removing a tireless advocate of racial equality.

 Earls, who was elected with 1.8 million votes in 2018 and is a frequent dissenter to the right-wing majority’s decisions, was responding to a study of advocates who argued at the high court. This study found that 90 percent of the lawyers were white and nearly 70 percent were male. Asked for her response, Earls noted the lack of racial diversity among the court’s clerks and her colleagues’ disparate treatment of certain advocates at oral argument. She went out of her way to say she didn’t think that this was the result of conscious bias, but “we all have implicit biases.” Earls also criticized decisions by Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican, to end implicit bias training and disband commissions looking into racial justice issues.

The Judicial Standards Commission, which has been reshaped by GOP judges in recent years, is now alleging that Earls’ concerns about bias in the courtroom may violate judicial ethics rules. The commission investigates complaints against judges, and its investigation could result in discipline for Earls or even her removal from office. If the commission finds a violation, the state Supreme Court would ultimately decide whether to accept its recommended sanction.

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Thousands of Pennsylvanians are locked up because they can't afford bail

Andrea Cipriano wrote recently in The Crime Report:

For years, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA) has been working on challenging the misuse of cash bail in the state’s 67 counties, but despite a number of concerns raised over the years, noting disparities in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, little has changed. 

Now, a new report shows that judges assigning cash bail in violation of the rules is not an issue confined to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia.  

“It’s a statewide crisis,” the ACLU-PA charges, adding that regardless of whether or not a county is red or blue, urban or rural, cash bail practices are incarcerating droves of people. 

The ACLU of Pennsylvania obtained the data used in this report from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC). The dataset covers the two-year period from 2016 to 2017, and consists of 383,317 cases. 

Working with a team of data scientists, the ACLU researchers looked over the information, finding that in all 67 counties, magisterial district judges (known as MDJs, or magistrates) “routinely set unaffordable cash bail for people awaiting their day in court.” 

Put in other words, this means that, “at any moment, thousands of Pennsylvanians are locked up in county jails simply because they could not afford to pay bail.” 

“This isn’t just unethical. It’s also in violation of the state Constitution,” Jessica Li, a criminal justice investigator, and advocacy and policy member of the ACLU-PA, writes regarding the report. 

Bail in Principle versus Practice

“In principle, and by law, bail is a mechanism for pretrial release,” Li explains. “But, in practice, magistrates use cash bail to jail people before trial.” 

According to the data analyzed for the report, the researchers found that magistrates routinely set bail at amounts that are too high for people to afford. And, across the state, more than half of those assigned cash bail were unable to pay — resulting in their incarceration. 

Cash bail was also the most common type of bail set in Pennsylvania, despite the fact that in practice, magistrates have other options that have been shown to be more effective than cash bail. Setting non-monetary bail, release on recognizance, or sending court date reminders are all options at their disposal, but the most devastating choice is often chosen. 

And, once thrown into the court system, the ACLU-PA researchers found that not everyone had access to the help they needed. 

Throughout most of Pennsylvania, the ACLU chapter explains, the majority of people appear at bail hearings without a lawyer to advocate on their behalf. Without understanding the system or knowing what to say in front of a judge, many people are left to fend for themselves 

The pretrial process also dictates that the defendant must post the amount of bail set in order to be released — and if they’re unable to pay, they remain incarcerated until their case is resolved, which happens in the majority of cases. 

Across the state, the ACLU researchers found that more than half of people assigned cash bail did not post it, as the average set cash bail amount of $38,433. Put in another perspective, the bail amount posted is more than half the average household income for the commonwealth. 

For people living in poverty, who might be homeless or experiencing precipitous unemployment, being forced to pay even a few hundred dollars ensures incarceration

“If the system were functioning as our constitution envisions, every person assigned money bail should be able to post it,” the report explains. “Yet as our analysis reveals, cash bail puts people in cages—rather than freeing them before trial.”

Clear Racial Disparities

The researchers also found that magistrates imposed cash bail more frequently and in higher amounts for Black people, uncovering another side of the cash bail system that disproportionately impacts people of color. 

Among Black people accused of a crime, 55.2 percent are assigned cash bail. Conversely, among white people accused of a crime, only 38.5 percent are assigned cash bail. 

Beyond assigning bail, the researchers also found that Black defendants are ordered to pay higher amounts of bail than their white counterparts — on average, $12,866 more.

This is a pattern seen in all 67 counties, the researchers uncovered. 

See Also: How Philadelphia’s ‘Bail Advocates’ Reduced Pretrial Racial Disparities

Recommendations for Reform

The ACLU-PA researchers first note that bail is meant to be a mechanism for release, but in reality, it’s used to detain people pretrial. 

“The problem lies not with the law, but with the elected officials who set bail and often failed to follow the law,” the researchers add, noting that their first recommendation is that magisterial district judges must follow the law and the guidance for pretrial detention, noting that they should encourage release on recognizance, and guarantee that monetary bail, if set, is affordable. 

Presiding judges must also exercise supervisory authority over magisterial district judges whom they oversee, as a way to keep all aspects of the system in line. 

Moreover, the researchers recommend that the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts must “promote transparency by analyzing bail data on a regular basis.” Much of this recommendation also relates to the fact that raw data in understanding bail practices is largely inaccessible to the public. 

Lastly, the ACLU-PA researchers suggest that courts and jails must work together to install safeguards that guarantee no person is incarcerated only because they are unable to pay bail. 

Additional Reading: Stop Blaming Crime Increase on Bail Reform: NC Prosecutor

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Allegheny County's slate of eight reform candidates for judge

In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, a group of judge candidates known as the “Slate of Eight” are running on a promise to scale back the reach of the criminal legal system and promote alternatives to incarceration in the 1.2 million person county, which includes Pittsburgh, reported The Appeal.

Their campaigns for seats on the County’s Court of Common Pleas—the primary trial court for criminal, civil, and family cases—could bring overwhelming change not only to that court but also to lower courts whose procedural rules are set by Common Pleas judges.

“This is an opportunity to be transformative in terms of how our courts look, how our courts feel for the public, and the types of policy reforms that can be implemented,” said Tiffany Sizemore, a professor at Duquesne University School of Law and former public defender who is part of the Slate of Eight. 

The Slate of Eight moniker comes from grassroots racial justice organizations that teamed up to decide who to endorse out of a pool of more than 30 candidates. The groups are planning to mount major volunteer mobilizations on behalf of their chosen candidates in the run-up to the May 18 Democratic primary. 

Nicola Henry-Taylor, Lisa Middleman, Mik Pappas, Zeke Rediker, Giuseppe Rosselli, Chelsa Wagner, and Wrenna Watson round out the slate; most are criminal defense lawyers or former public defenders. Organizers supporting the slate say they chose these candidates because of their commitment to reforms like reducing the use of cash bail, curtailing long sentences, diverting drug cases, and limiting the involvement of minors with the criminal legal system.

“The slate candidates all understand how mass incarceration is one of the leading issues in this country, that the issue of mass incarceration is a national embarrassment,” Wasi Mohamed, a founding organizer with UNITE, one of the organizations that endorsed the slate, told The Appeal: Political Report. 

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Philadelphia criminal prosecutions slow to a trickle

 As the pandemic forced Philadelphia’s criminal courts to shut down for much of 2020, and some defendants approached a year in jail without a hearing, lawyers began noticing a strange phenomenon. Thousands of cases were all being listed for December status hearings in Room 200 of the Stout Criminal Justice Center.

The problem? There is no such courtroom, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The process of rescheduling those cases is ongoing — court dates are now being scheduled into July, lawyers said. It has become one striking example of the courts’ struggle to adapt, as an escalating backlog has now exceeded 13,000 cases, according to the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Ten months into the pandemic, the rule guaranteeing a speedy trial remains suspended.

Last week, the Defender Association took the unusual step of petitioning the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to intervene. The filing sought release for six people who had been jailed more than 200 days without a preliminary hearing, at which prosecutors must show probable cause that a crime occurred.

 “Because nearly all court hearings and trials have either stopped or slowed to a trickle, each petitioner, and hundreds of others like them, have been unable to contest the basis of their confinement,” the Defender Association wrote.

The president judge of Philadelphia’s Municipal Court, Patrick F. Dugan, said in an interview that the courts are navigating a complicated and imperfect process amid unprecedented challenges.

“I have two jobs. One is our mission, which is to do these cases in a fair and expeditious manner for everyone involved,” he said. “But in COVID, the welfare of the people has to be a parallel [concern]. We have to take into consideration the health of our people: the attorneys on all sides, the sheriffs, witnesses, victims, police, anyone involved in our court system.”

Courtrooms where judges once heard more than 50 cases per day are now limited to a few per hour, he said.

And even when the court is ready, other justice system actors may not be.

Last fall, he instituted status calls before preliminary hearings to ensure that all sides would be ready. But of 4,300 hearings scheduled that way, 61% still ended up getting delayed.

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PA legislature one step closer to regionalizing appellate courts

A Pennsylvania legislative panel narrowly approved a proposal to amend the state Constitution to elect state appeals court judges by zone, a movement largely motivated by Republicans’ anger over recent rulings from the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court, reported The Associated Press.

The House Judiciary vote was 13-12, with two GOP members joining Democrats against the effort designed to swing control of the state Supreme Court, where Democrats now hold a 5-2 majority.

The full Republican-majority House can now consider it. Pennsylvania governors can’t veto constitutional amendments.

The judicial districts would also apply to Superior and Commonwealth courts, which have Republican majorities, but the proposed amendment leaves many of the details to the Legislature to iron out. Those details include how the district lines would be drawn and what will happen to the incumbent judges before or once their current terms expire.

Rep. David Millard, R-Columbia, said he was supportive in part because there have been few appellate judges elected in the rural, less populated portion of the state north of Interstate 80, calling that “a red flag to me that this bill has a lot of merit to it.”

“They’re not supposed to be representing geographical ideologies,” argued the ranking Democrat on the committee, Montgomery County Rep. Tim Briggs. “They’re supposed to be looking at a statewide jurisdiction and interpreting the laws that we pass.”

Democrats lost an effort to have the committee hold a public hearing on the legislation.

Allegheny County Rep. Natalie Mihalek, a Republican, said she was against the proposal, saying it would increase the partisanship of appellate judges rather than elevate those with the right temperament, experience and legal skills.

“I think this is a time when we should be abandoning the practice of politicizing our bench,” she said.

Supporters say that among the 31 Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth court seats, one judge and one justice currently live in the northern part of Pennsylvania.

Of the five Democrats on the state Supreme Court, one is from Philadelphia and four are from the Pittsburgh area. A Republican is from Tioga County, while Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, a Republican who is retiring at the end of the year, lives near Harrisburg.

The Judiciary Committee also advanced to the House floor a constitutional amendment that would temporarily permit lawsuits over child sexual abuse that occurred many years ago. It voted 14-1 to allow a two-year “window” during which people could file civil lawsuits outside the statute of limitations that existed at the time they were victimized.

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