Chief Justice Roberts focuses on aspirations rather than reality in year-end report

The U.S. Supreme Court building on March 28, 2018. Photograph by Margo Kirchner.

By Margo Kirchner

In another tone-deaf year-end report, Chief Justice John Roberts ignores his own court’s present-day participation in undermining democracy.
 
Last year, Roberts decried the erosion of adherence to court orders while ignoring how his own court’s poor ethical standards create a lack of public trust in the judiciary. This year, he says Americans can look to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution with continued confidence.
 
Roberts writes: “As we approach the semiquincentennial of our Nation’s birth, it is worth recalling the words of President Calvin Coolidge spoken a century ago on the occasion of America’s sesquicentennial: ‘Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.’”
 
“True then; true now,” Roberts remarked immediately after the quotation.
 
That the Supreme Court under his guidance recently held that Americans can be stopped for their brown skin (now referred to as “Kavanaugh stops”) and that the president of the United States has immunity from assassinating political rivals seems lost on Roberts, or intentionally forgotten. The same can be said for how his court has used its emergency docket to undermine lower judges’ authority and shift power to the executive branch, upsetting long-existing checks and balances on presidential power.
 
In the annual report, dated Dec. 31, 2025, Roberts puts on his historian hat (his 50-year-old Harvard bachelor’s degree was in history) to discuss Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and to school readers on the Declaration of Independence. He is a professor rather than someone who takes to heart the power he and his fellow justices wield in protecting constitutional rights.
 
Roberts notes the Declaration’s preamble statement of self-evident truths, including that "'all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'”
 
But he then focuses on how these are mere hopes: “The Declaration of Independence was then, and remains today, a statement of national aspirations, not a codification of enforceable legal obligations.”
 
Roberts correctly discusses how the Constitution, not the Declaration, is the charter for the government, and that the 1787 Constitution “fell short of honoring the abstract principles set forth in the 1776 Declaration—most notably, in regard to the Declaration’s promise of liberty and equality.” He then discusses “national accomplishments” over the years—such as the Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments, the Nineteenth Amendment, the overruling of Plessy v. Fergusen in Brown v. Board of Education, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964—as part of an “ongoing project to make the ideals set out in the Declaration real for all Americans.”
 
But his conclusion that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution today "'remain firm and unshaken'” is questionable.
 
Using the first person, Roberts includes himself in saying that federal judges must continue to decide cases “according to our oath, doing equal right to the poor and to the rich, and performing all of our duties faithfully and impartially under the Constitution and laws of the United States,” as if it is a forgone conclusion that recent Supreme Court cases have been faithful to the Constitution and treated the rich and poor with equal rights.
 
Two bright spots: First, Roberts tells readers about the 1805 impeachment trial and acquittal of Justice Samuel Chase, pointing out that disagreement with a judge’s decisions is not a valid basis for removal from office.
 
Second, in the best part of Roberts’ message, he thanks all judges, court staff, and judicial branch personnel “for their commitment to public service and their dedication to upholding the rule of law.” Whether intentional or not, he left “justices” out of the sentiment. Lower court judges and staff, indeed, have been carrying the torch of upholding the rule of law.
 
The appendix to the report contains a brief summary of federal court statistics. Supreme Court filings during the October 2024 through June 2025 term were down 9% from the prior term, while the number of cases with oral arguments and signed opinions remained about the same.
 
For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2025, filings in the courts of appeals were up 5%; civil case filings in the district courts were up slightly, 4%, while the number of criminal defendants charged rose 13%; and bankruptcy court filings increased 11%.
 
Of note, federal appeals by pro se litigants (those who represent themselves) made up half of all newly filed appeals; appeals by those in prison accounted for 20% of all newly filed appeals.

In the district courts, civil rights filings increased by 15% and made up 15% of all cases filed, while petitions by those in prison accounted for 14% of new cases. Criminal filings for alleged immigration offenses increased 27% and constituted 41% of all criminal case filings (measured by number of defendants).
 
Nonbusiness (mostly consumer) bankruptcy petitions accounted for 96% of the more than 550,000 new bankruptcy case filings nationwide.