Supreme Court Justices Issue Warning to Lower Court Judges
Two of President Donald J. Trump’s Supreme Court appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — delivered stern warnings this summer to lower court judges who have been openly defying precedents set by the high court, particularly in cases involving the Trump administration.
In a strongly worded opinion, Gorsuch wrote that “lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them.” His comments came as the Court overturned a lower court ruling that sought to block Trump’s cancellation of nearly $800 million in federal research grants, a decision that the justices said was “squarely controlled” by existing precedent.
Kavanaugh joined Gorsuch in the opinion, which criticized U.S. District Judge William Young for disregarding a prior Supreme Court order and injecting political bias into his ruling. Judge Young had claimed, without evidence, that he had “never seen government racial discrimination like this.” The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to keep the grants frozen while the case proceeds.
Gorsuch expressed frustration that the high court had been forced to intervene repeatedly to correct rogue lower courts.
“This is the third time in a matter of weeks this court has had to intercede in a case squarely controlled by one of its precedents,” he wrote. “When this court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.”
Justice Samuel Alito issued a similar rebuke earlier this year, calling a district judge’s defiance of a Trump policy ruling an “act of judicial hubris.”
The Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in multiple emergency docket cases this year — from immigration and federal spending disputes to agency leadership authority — often reversing activist rulings that sought to obstruct executive action.
Predictably, the Court’s liberal justices objected. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting in the NIH funding case, accused the majority of “Calvinball jurisprudence,” claiming the Court changes rules to favor Trump. Justice Sonia Sotomayor went further, accusing the majority of “rewarding lawlessness” in a separate deportation case.
Conservative legal experts applauded the majority’s firmness. James Burnham, a former Gorsuch clerk who served in the Trump administration, said:
“The defiance of the Supreme Court’s emergency orders by some lower courts is unprecedented, extraordinary, and the Supreme Court must deal with it decisively.”
Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, agreed, noting that it had “become necessary to remind district judges not to flout orders of the Supreme Court.”
The controversy stems from how lower courts treat the Supreme Court’s emergency rulings — which are often unsigned but still binding. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh emphasized that these orders must be respected, especially when they address the same legal questions in subsequent cases.
In July, the Court again sided with President Trump, affirming his authority to remove three Biden-appointed members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, citing earlier precedent on executive removals.
The justices also handed down a major decision limiting the power of district judges to impose nationwide injunctions, a tool frequently used by left-wing jurists to block Trump policies. The ruling arose from Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, which had been halted by a lower court.
Speaking at a judicial conference in Kansas City, Justice Kavanaugh underscored the need for discipline and constitutional restraint:
“Members of the judiciary have an important responsibility… to get it right, to do our hard work, to understand our role in the constitutional democracy. We’re not the policymakers.”
His remarks echoed a growing concern among conservatives that lower court activism — particularly from Biden-appointed judges — is undermining judicial integrity and the separation of powers.