Roberts Court

Supreme Court of the United States

Roberts Court
Rehnquist Court ← → Current
Chief Justice John Roberts
Since September 29, 2005 – 16 years, 90 days
Seat	Supreme Court Building Washington, D.C.
No. of positions	9
Roberts Court decisions

The Roberts Court is the time since 2005 during which the Supreme Court of the United States has been led by Chief Justice John Roberts. It is generally considered more conservative than the preceding Rehnquist Court, as well as the most conservative court since the 1940s and early 1950s Vinson Court. This is due to the retirement of moderate Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, and the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the subsequent confirmation of the conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett in their places, respectively.^[1] Since Ginsburg's death, the Court has been generally regarded as split three ways ideologically, with Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor comprising a liberal wing, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett comprising a centrist conservative wing often reluctant to overrule precedent, and Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch comprising a hardline conservative wing generally willing to overrule precedent.^[2][3][4][5]

Membership[]

Roberts was originally nominated by President George W. Bush to replace Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had decided to retire from the Court, effective with the confirmation of her successor. However, before the Senate could act upon Roberts' nomination to be an Associate Justice, Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, and President Bush nominated Roberts for the Chief Justice vacancy. Roberts' nomination as Chief Justice was confirmed by the Senate in 2005. Roberts took the constitutional oath of office, administered by senior Associate Justice John Paul Stevens (who was the acting Chief Justice during the vacancy) at the White House, on September 29, 2005, almost immediately after his confirmation. On October 3, Roberts took the judicial oath provided for by the Judiciary Act of 1789, prior to the first oral arguments of the 2005 term. The Roberts Court commenced with Roberts as Chief Justice and eight holdovers from the Rehnquist Court: Stevens, O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.

President Bush nominated Samuel Alito (after the withdrawal of Bush's first nominee, White House Counsel Harriet Miers) to replace O'Connor, and he was confirmed in January 2006. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace Souter, and in 2010 Obama nominated Elena Kagan to replace Stevens. After six years, Justice Scalia died in February 2016. In the following month Obama nominated Merrick Garland, but Garland's nomination was never considered by the Senate, and it expired when the Senate's 114th Congress ended and the 115th Congress began on January 3, 2017. Eleven days after the 2017 Inauguration, on January 31, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace Scalia. Democrats in the Senate filibustered the Gorsuch nomination, which led to the Republicans exercising the "nuclear option". After that, Gorsuch was confirmed in April 2017. On July 9, 2018, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace Kennedy (who retired on July 31),^[6] and he was confirmed on October 6, 2018. Justice Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020. A week later, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to succeed Ginsburg and she was confirmed on October 26, 2020.^[7]

Timeline[]

Note: The blue vertical line denotes "now" (December 2021).

Bar key:        Ford appointee •        Reagan appointee •        G. H. W. Bush appointee •        Clinton appointee •        G. W. Bush appointee •        Obama appointee •        Trump appointee

Other branches[]

Presidents during this court have included George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. Congresses included 109th through the current 117th United States Congresses.

Rulings of the Court[]

The Roberts Court (since October 2020): Front row (left to right): Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. Back row (left to right): Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett

The Roberts court has issued major rulings on incorporation of the Bill of Rights, gun control, affirmative action, campaign finance regulation, abortion, capital punishment, gay rights, unlawful search and seizure, and criminal sentencing. Major decisions of the Roberts Court include:^[8][9]

• Massachusetts v. EPA (2007): In a 5–4 decision in which the majority opinion was delivered by Justice Stevens, the Supreme Court upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's right to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.
• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008): In a 5–4 decision in which the majority opinion was delivered by Justice Scalia, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment applies to federal enclaves, and that the amendment protects the right of individuals to possess a firearm, regardless of service in a militia. McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), in a 5–4 decision written by Justice Alito, extended this protection to the states.
• Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009): In a 5–4 decision written by Justice Kennedy, the court reversed the Second Circuit's decision not to dismiss a suit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and others that claimed that the FBI engaged in discriminatory activities following the 9/11 attacks. The court also extended the heightened pleading standard established in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly (2006), which had previously applied only to antitrust law. The number of dismissals greatly increased after the Iqbal ruling.^[10]
• Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010): In a 5–4 decision in which the majority opinion was delivered by Justice Kennedy, the Court held that the provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act which regulated independent expenditures in political campaigns by corporations, unions, and non-profits violated First Amendment freedom of speech rights.
• National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012): In a 5–4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court upheld most of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the individual mandate to buy health insurance. The mandate was upheld as part of Congress's power of taxation. In a subsequent case, King v. Burwell (2015), the Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, this time in a 6–3 opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts. In a third related case, California v. Texas (2021), the Court held that neither states nor individuals had the standing to challenge the PPACA's individual mandate due to the penalty being reduced to $0 in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The 7-2 ruling was written by Justice Breyer.
• Arizona v. United States (2012): In a 5–3 decision delivered by Justice Kennedy, the Court held that portions of Arizona SB 1070, an Arizona law regarding immigration, unconstitutionally usurped the federal authority to regulate immigration laws and enforcement.
• Shelby County v. Holder (2013): In a 5–4 decision delivered by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided a coverage formula for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The latter section requires certain states and jurisdictions to obtain federal preclearance before changing voting laws or practices, in an effort to prevent those states and jurisdictions from discriminating against voters. Without a coverage formula, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is no longer in effect.
• Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014): In a 5–4 decision delivered by Justice Alito, the Court exempted closely held corporations from the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate on the basis of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
• Riley v. California (2014): In a 9–0 decision, the Court held that the warrantless search and seizure of digital contents of a cell phone during an arrest is unconstitutional.
• Obergefell v. Hodges (2015): In a 5–4 decision delivered by Justice Kennedy, the Court held that the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause both guarantee the right of same-sex couples to marry.
• Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016): In a 5–3 decision delivered by Justice Breyer, the Court struck down restrictions the state of Texas had placed on abortion clinics as an "undue burden" on access to abortion.
• Trump v. Hawaii (2018): In a 5–4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court overturned a preliminary injunction against the Trump travel ban, allowing it to go into effect. The Court also overturned the precedent Korematsu v United States (1944), which allowed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II.^[11]
• Carpenter v. United States (2018): In a 5–4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that government acquisition of cell-site records is a Fourth Amendment search, and, thus, generally requires a warrant.
• Timbs v. Indiana (2019): In a 9–0 decision, the Court ruled that the "excessive fines" clause of the Eighth Amendment is incorporated against state and local governments, affecting the use of civil forfeitures.
• Rucho v. Common Cause (2019): In a 5–4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that partisan gerrymandering claims present nonjusticiable political questions.
• Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia (2020): In a 6–3 decision delivered by Justice Gorsuch, the Court ruled that Title VII employment protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 do extend to cover gender identity and sexual orientation.
• Jones v. Mississippi (2021): In a 6−3 decision written by Justice Kavanaugh, the Court upheld a Mississippi law requiring a mandatory life sentence without parole for persons convicted of murder with a prior felony even for persons under age 18 at the time of the offense, and ruled that neither the states nor judges are required to perform a separate evaluation of whether a child is considered rehabiliatable, thus overturning the precedent established in Miller v. Alabama.
• Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021): In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Alito, the Court held that two Arizona voting laws did not violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act nor had a racially discriminatory purpose. The ruling in effect limited Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
• Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (2021): In a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court struck down a California law requiring non-profit organizations to disclose the identity of their large donors to the state, ruling that the regulation placed too much of a burden on donors and violated their First Amendment rights.

Judicial philosophy[]

The Roberts Court has been described as "conservative in most cases, liberal in some," with (prior to the death of Justice Scalia) five conservative-leaning justices and four liberal-leaning justices. Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, Roberts, and Scalia generally have taken more conservative positions, while Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan have generally taken more liberal positions. Souter and Stevens had also been part of the liberal bloc prior to their respective retirements. These two blocs of voters have lined up together in several major cases, though Justice Kennedy had often sided with the liberal bloc. Roberts has also served as a swing vote, often advocating for narrow rulings and compromise among the two blocs of Justices.^[9][12] Though the Court sometimes does divide along partisan lines, attorney and SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein has noted that more cases are decided 9–0 and that the individual justices hold a wide array of views.^[13]

The judicial philosophy of Roberts on the Supreme Court has been assessed by leading court commentators including Jeffrey Rosen^[14] and Marcia Coyle.^[15] Although Roberts is identified as having a conservative judicial philosophy, his vote in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) upholding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has caused reflection in the press concerning the comparative standing of his conservative judicial philosophy compared to other sitting justices of conservative orientation; he is seen as having a more moderate conservative orientation, particularly when his vote to uphold the ACA is compared to Rehnquist's vote in Bush v. Gore.^[16]

Regarding Roberts' contemporaneous peers on the bench, his judicial philosophy is seen as more moderate and conciliatory than that of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.^[14][16] Unlike Scalia, Roberts has not indicated any particularly enhanced reading of originalism or framer's intentions as has been plainly evident in Scalia's speeches and writings.^[15] Roberts' strongest inclination on the Court has been to attempt to re-establish the centrist orientation of the Court as being party neutral, in contrast to his predecessor Rehnquist who had devoted significant effort to promote a states rights orientation for the Court. Roberts' voting pattern reflecting his conservative judicial philosophy is most closely aligned to Samuel Alito on the Court,^[17] the latter of whom has also become associated with libertarian trends in the conservative judicial philosophy.^[14]

List of Roberts Court opinions[]

References[]

Further reading[]