As U.S. turns 250, retired judges hit the road to defend judicial independence
On Friday (July 10, 2026), a group of retired judges will step off a tour bus in a ritzy Michigan suburb after three days of
On Friday (July 10, 2026), a group of retired judges will step off a tour bus in a ritzy Michigan suburb after three days of barnstorming through corn fields, cities and coal towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania. They carry with them a message. In courthouses and public squares, they have marked the nation's 250th anniversary with a dire warning: The rule of law in America is in grave danger. They will deliver a similar message at a library in Grosse Pointe just outside Detroit — the last stop on an extraordinary tour to defend judicial independence and bolster trust in courts. The retired judges said Americans' confidence in the court system and democracy has dipped in recent years. They pointed to a more polarized country, and President Donald Trump’s repeated criticism of the fairness of the judicial system, with some judges on the tour saying in phone interviews this week that the United States was at a precipice. “Looking back in history, we have teetered," former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly said. "This is a moment where we can decide to re-instil those beliefs that we are a country of laws and not of men.” The four-day tour through the Rust Belt is a sharp departure for a typically reserved and insular branch of government. Federal judges, in particular, largely limit their comments to the courtroom and written decisions, focussing on the facts of individual cases. But that restraint is loosening amid a barrage of attacks by Mr. Trump and other White House officials, the administration's rampant defiance of U.S. district court orders and its expansive view of executive power.
Trump has called a district judge who ruled against one of his immigration moves ‘crooked’ and suggested with no evidence that Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs were motivated by foreign interests. More federal judges have recently begun talking about receiving death threats and profane messages, though they have not blamed Mr. Trump or any other officials. Some have blasted administration policies in sharply worded opinions that strayed beyond the legal dispute before them. Even U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has weighed in. In an appearance in March, Mr. Roberts said personal criticism of federal judges was dangerous and had to stop. The rare rebuke from the head of the nation's top court came two days after Mr. Trump's remark about a ‘crooked’ judge, though Mr. Roberts didn't mention Mr. Trump or anyone else by name. The U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats against federal judges in the government fiscal year that ended in September, up from 509 the year before. “I don’t want to say we have moved into an era of lawlessness, but it sometimes feels that way,” said former U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts, who was set to join the bus tour in Michigan. Timothy Lewis, another former federal judge on the tour, said his concerns about the politicisation of the judicial branch reached a tipping point a decade ago, when Senate Republicans thwarted President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Today, the rule of law is facing an ‘existential threat’ from an ongoing breakdown of norms, according to Lewis, who spent seven years on the third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The BriefWire