The story of the 2024–2025 Supreme Court is the story of two very different Courts. One is what might be called the Normal Court, the institution that hears cases, issues decisions supported by opinions, and uses these decisions to develop constitutional and legal doctrines that evolve over time. This year’s Normal Court was remarkable for its lack of activity. There were relatively few cases decided—50 cases scheduled for arguments producing 67 opinions—and none carried anything like the significance of blockbuster cases from recent terms. The pattern is surprising, as over the past few years the Roberts Court has established a reputation for big decisions in highly contentious cases, leading us to frame last term’s presentation around the question of how “radical” a Court the 2023–2024 Roberts Court had been. This term there were no cases about abortions or guns, no major free speech cases, no substantive decisions that further develop the Roberts’ Court’s theories of federalism and separation of powers. But then there was the other Court, the “Emergency Court.” This year’s Roberts Emergency Court has been all about Donald Trump’s historically unprecedented challenges to the normal rule of law. No President since FDR and perhaps ever has engaged in a similar pattern of claiming that he is free to ignore federal laws of which he does not approve; using executive orders to defund or dissolve whole agencies; firing federal employees in contravention of statutory protections; and openly ignoring long-standing Supreme Court precedent on the grounds that he expects the current Court to overrule those precedents. Lower federal courts, confronted by this flood of extreme executive conduct, have issues more than 200 orders and injunctions blocking actions by the administration. The administration’s response has been to file emergency appeals to prevent those orders from taking effect. In ruling on these appeals the Roberts “Emergency Court” has granted the administration’s requests in almost every case while declining to rule on the underlying legal or constitutional issues involved. The result is that the administration is free to continue in its actions that may eventually be found to have been illegal or unconstitutional, violations of basic rights, unauthorized, and potentially criminal were it not for the scope of the immunity granted last term by the Roberts Court in Trump v. United States.

Introduction: The 2024–2025 Term: A Tale of Two Courts (and Two Constitutions?)

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2026年

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Howard Schweber

摘要

The story of the 2024–2025 Supreme Court is the story of two very different Courts. One is what might be called the Normal Court, the institution that hears cases, issues decisions supported by opinions, and uses these decisions to develop constitutional and legal doctrines that evolve over time. This year’s Normal Court was remarkable for its lack of activity. There were relatively few cases decided—50 cases scheduled for arguments producing 67 opinions—and none carried anything like the significance of blockbuster cases from recent terms. The pattern is surprising, as over the past few years the Roberts Court has established a reputation for big decisions in highly contentious cases, leading us to frame last term’s presentation around the question of how “radical” a Court the 2023–2024 Roberts Court had been. This term there were no cases about abortions or guns, no major free speech cases, no substantive decisions that further develop the Roberts’ Court’s theories of federalism and separation of powers. But then there was the other Court, the “Emergency Court.” This year’s Roberts Emergency Court has been all about Donald Trump’s historically unprecedented challenges to the normal rule of law. No President since FDR and perhaps ever has engaged in a similar pattern of claiming that he is free to ignore federal laws of which he does not approve; using executive orders to defund or dissolve whole agencies; firing federal employees in contravention of statutory protections; and openly ignoring long-standing Supreme Court precedent on the grounds that he expects the current Court to overrule those precedents. Lower federal courts, confronted by this flood of extreme executive conduct, have issues more than 200 orders and injunctions blocking actions by the administration. The administration’s response has been to file emergency appeals to prevent those orders from taking effect. In ruling on these appeals the Roberts “Emergency Court” has granted the administration’s requests in almost every case while declining to rule on the underlying legal or constitutional issues involved. The result is that the administration is free to continue in its actions that may eventually be found to have been illegal or unconstitutional, violations of basic rights, unauthorized, and potentially criminal were it not for the scope of the immunity granted last term by the Roberts Court in Trump v. United States.