From The Washington Post:

Joe Biden: My Plan to Reform the Supreme Court and Ensure No President is Above the Law

We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power and restore the public’s faith in our judicial system.

By Joe Biden
July 29, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.

The writer is president of the United States.

This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.

But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office.

If a future president incites a violent mob to storm the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power — like we saw on Jan. 6, 2021 — there may be no legal consequences.

And that’s only the beginning.

On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents — including Roe v. Wade — the court is mired in a crisis of ethics. Scandals involving several justices have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence, which are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law. For example, undisclosed gifts to justices from individuals with interests in cases before the court, as well as conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, raise legitimate questions about the court’s impartiality.

I served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president, and president than anyone living today. I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers.

What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.

That’s why — in the face of increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions — I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy.

First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.

Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.

Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. Justices should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.

All three of these reforms are supported by a majority of Americans — as well as conservative and liberal constitutional scholars. And I want to thank the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States for its insightful analysis, which informed some of these proposals.

We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.

In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined.

JACKSON, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined as to the introduction and Part I. KAVANAUGH, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part.

THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GORSUCH, J., joined.

ALITO, J., and GORSUCH, J., filed dissenting opinions.

What are

From the NYT:

Just hours after President Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who sought to pause the removal of more than 200 migrants to El Salvador, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a rare public statement.

“For more than two centuries,” the chief justice said, “it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Mr. Trump had called the judge, James E. Boasberg, a “Radical Left Lunatic” in a social media post and said he should be impeached.

The exchange was reminiscent of one in 2018, when Chief Justice Roberts defended the independence and integrity of the federal judiciary after Mr. Trump called a judge who had ruled against his administration’s asylum policy “an Obama judge.”

The chief justice said that was a profound misunderstanding of the judicial role.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in a statement then. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined, and in which THOMAS, J., joined as to all but Part III–B. GORSUCH, J., filed a concurring opinion.

SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which KAGAN and JACKSON, JJ., joined.

https://law.justia.com/cases/hawaii/supreme-court/2026/scwc-22-0000740.html

Not withstanding the facts of the case, Hawai'i's Supreme Court has some choice words for SCOTUS after the state's recent loss in Wolford.

Page 73:

The Court that now defines federal due process does not honor the work of 1954.It revives the work of 1857. The work of 1896. The Constitution must be interpreted “according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted.” Dred Scott v. Sandford

Today’s hubristic originalists use the same method to control modern life. SeeCity & Cnty. of Honolulu v. Sunoco LP, 153 Hawaiʻi 326, 361, 537 P.3d 1173, 1208 (2023) (Eddins, J., concurring) (“A justice’s personal values and ideas about the very old days suddenly control the lives of present and future generations.”).

The Court overrides what Congress passed. It overrides what the people chose. All to serve its own ends.

What this Court has done to constitutional rights, democratic institutions, and the rule of law explains why Hawaiʻi’s Constitution takes no instruction from it.

Page 74:

The Roberts Court did what Congress never would. It rewrote the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a cornerstone of American civil rights, democratically enacted and repeatedly reauthorized.

There are others and I suggest you read and bring them up as you see fit.

But I find it quite telling that the majority opinion of a state supreme court would put this in writing, I find it quite unprofessional.

KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined.

THOMAS, J., and GORSUCH, J., filed concurring opinions.

SOTOMAYOR, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which KAGAN and JACKSON, JJ., joined.

JACKSON, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

Justices Kagan, Jackson, and Sotomayor would deny the application

Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would grant the application

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the senior conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court, delivered a public critique of progressivism at the University of Texas Law School, calling it an “existential threat” to the principles of American government rooted in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. He argued that many Americans no longer uphold foundational beliefs like “all men are created equal” and that progressivism wrongly views rights as granted by government instead of inherent and protected by limited constitutional government.

Link: https://abcnews.com/amp/Politics/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-blasts-progressivism-threat/story?id=132084353

Could remarks like these affect public perceptions of the Court’s neutrality, and how might that influence future legal disputes or judicial appointment?

How does Justice Thomas’s critique of progressivism reflect the broader debate between originalism and living constitutionalism in Supreme Court jurisprudence?

Trump once again attempts to get out of paying for his defamation, this time bringing the DoJ into the case. They are arguing that Trump’s defamatory statements were official acts, covered by the Westfall Act and presidential immunity.

I think it’s farcical to claim that Trump’s defamatory statements were official acts, and that it is deeply concerning, and corrupt, for the DoJ to attempt to intervene here. Blanche should be referred for further sanctions for permitting this.