The NY Court of Appeals: A Brief Stat-Pack on the Wilson Court (Part 2--Criminal Caseload)

In Part 1, we looked at the number of appeals decided by New York's highest court, from the last few years of the Chief Judge Wachtler era to the years since Rowan Wilson succeeded to the center seat. In brief, here is what we've seen:

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The number of appeals the Court decided dropped significantly under Chief Judge Judith Kaye--especially in the latter years of her tenure. The number rose considerably under Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman. But it then plummetted dramatically under Chief Judge Janet DiFiore. That number has now risen somewhat under Wilson, but it is not close to the earlier, pre-DiFiore figures.

(The eras refer to the respective years of each Chief Judge's tenure. As for"Early Kaye," that refers to the first several years of her tenure as Chief Judge, 1993-97; "Later Kaye" refers to the years thereafter when there was a significant reduction in the number of appeals decided by the Court, 1998-2008.)

Now let's look at some numbers regarding the criminal appeals alone. That sheds some insights.

For one thing, the number of requests made to the Court of Appeals to review criminal decisions of the lower courts has dropped over the years. In fact, the number of applications has dropped to less than half of what it was in the late 80's and early 90's, i.e., under Chief Judge Wachtler and for the first several years thereafter under Chief Judge Kaye:

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As shown in the graph, the number of Criminal Leave Applications (CLAs--i.e., petitions for the Court to review the criminal decision below) began to drop significantly in the last several years under Chief Judge Kaye. The drop began under Kaye in 2002, and it persisted thereafter--except during Chief Judge Lippman's tenure and the immediate post-Lippman years. That drop then accelerated under Chief Judge Janet DiFiore.

In short, fewer parties that lost in the courts below sought review in the state's highest Court beginning in 2002--again, except in the Lippman and immediate post-Lippman era. Why? 

Well, it wasn't because of a sudden, coterminus drop in criminal convictions. Figures from the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services reveals that there has been a significant and continuous drop in the number of criminal convictions. But that began in 2010, not in 2002 when the number of CLAs began to drop. So, something else was going on at the Court of Appeals. Take a look at this:

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As shown in this graph, several years into the Kaye era, the Court began to accept fewer petitions (Criminal Leave Applications or CLAs) to review criminal decisions made by the courts below. Indeed, this reduction in the percentage of CLAs granted by Judges of the Kaye Court was quite dramatic beginning in the late 90's. 

Then, more than a decade later, during the tenure of Kaye's successor, Chief Judge Lippman, the percentage of criminal cases being accepted for review increased. And this Lippman era increase was at least as dramatic as the Kaye-era reduction had been.

But the Lippman increase was short-lived. Under Lippman's successor, Chief Judge DiFiore, the CLA grants dropped again--and precipitously so. Today, this roller coaster, this rate of the Court's acceptance of criminal cases for review, has been rising somewhat under Chief Judge Wilson.

Here's another way to consider what has been happening with the Court of Appeals' criminal caseload:

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As shown in the above graph, the roller coaster in the number of criminal appeals actually decided by the Court of Appeals has, as would be expected, coincided rather closely with the roller coaster in the percentage of CLAs granted. Less than half as many criminal cases were decided by the Court in the later years of the Kaye era compared to the number early in her tenure and before that under Wachtler. That number then rose sharply under Lippman, only to fall again under DiFiore. Currently, under Wilson, the criminal caseload is rising a bit. But it is nothing like the criminal caseloads of the Lippman, early-Kaye, and Wachtler eras.

All of the foregoing may help to see that the Court's overall caseload--the total number of appeals it has been deciding, civil and criminal--closely mirrors the Court's criminal caseload. The fall and rise and fall again of the number of decisions rendered by New York's highest court has been happening at the same intervals as the number of its criminal decisions and, relatedly, the percentage of its CLA grants.

But that does not tell us what underlies these changes. We'll take a look at that in the next post.

But as a teaser, take a look at what the Court published in its most recent Annual Report. It published a record of the CLA decisions of each of the Court's members for 2025. More specifically, it revealed the number of petitions seeking review of criminal decisions below that were granted by each Judge on the Court. This is new. The Annual Reports did not publish these numbers previously.

[Remember, as Court of Appeals watchers know, as a matter of New York's criminal procedure law, CLAs are decided, granted or denied, by one Judge--NOT by the Court as a whole.] 

Here are the figures published in the 2025 Annual Report:

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As shown in this table, there is a huge discrpancy in the rate at which the different Judges on the Court are granting CLAs--again, deciding to accept a criminal case for the Court of Appelas to review. How many criminal decisions, from courts below, are accepted for review by New York's high court, depends upon how many CLAs are granted by each Judge.

Just compare the number of CLAs granted by Wilson, Rivera, and Halligan with the number granted by Garcia and Singas. So, if more Judges are granting more CLAs, the Court's criminal caseload is going to be greater than if more Judges are granting fewer. As we'll discuss in the next post, that tells us a good deal about the roller coaster over the years in the Court's caseload.

The NY Court of Appeals: A Brief Stat-Pack on the Wilson Court (Part 1--Caseload)

As discussed on New York Court Watcher before, there have been changes at the Court of Appeals since the elevation of Rowan Wilson to be Chief Judge. They are hard to miss for anyone paying attention to New York's highest tribunal. In this, Part 1, let's look at the Court's caseload. Specifically, how it has increased:

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As the graph above shows, for two years in a row, the number of cases decided by the Court with Wilson presiding has been half-again what it was during the last full year of the Court under Chief Judge Janet DiFiore. Whatever the views about this increase, by appellate attorneys and members of the Court itself--desirable, unnecessary, inconsequential, or something else--the fact is that New York's court of last resort is in fact hearing and deciding more cases than it had been during the DiFiore era.

(Unless otherwise noted, the figures are the result of my own research and do not simply duplicate the official reports.)

The increase from 81 decisions in the last full year of DiFiore's tenure to 120 under Wilson thus far, is no small increase. But to put the numbers in historical perspective, the numbers under Wilson are still far below those of the pre-DiFiore past. Take a look:

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As the graph shows, the Court's caseload was far greater in the past. Whether under Chief Judge Sol Wachtler, Judith Kaye, or Jonathan Lippman, the Court typically decided well over 200 cases each year. Yes, there were a few years under Kaye when the numbers plunged below that number. But otherwise, the caseload hovered between 225 and in excess of 250.

Whether it would be a positive development or not, the current caseload under Wilson would have to double to reach the customary caseloads under Wachtler, Kaye and Lippman.

(Again, unless otherwise noted, the figures are the result of my own research and do not simply duplicate the official reports.)

In Part 2, we'll take a look at appeals granted by the Court--as opposed to by the Appellate Division or as of right.

Roberts vs. Trump: Barely Disguised Contempt (Part 2)

Many readers are understandably upset with the Roberts Court's dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and other decisions viewed as politically and socially regressive. But there is another side of Roberts and his Court--perhaps just a slice--that shouldn't be overlooked. Some of the decisions exhibit a different character.

In Part 1, we looked at two majority opinions of Chief Justice John Roberts. One sided with President Trump and one did not. But in both, the Chief Justice's utter disdain for Trump's words and actions could not have been more clear. While upholding the travel ban of Trump's first administration [Trump v. Hawaii (2018)], Roberts contrasted Trump's expressed religious bigotry to the magnanimous and tolerant welcoming of other presidents toward minority religions. And when Roberts more recently wrote to invalidate Trump's tariffs [Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (2026)], he made clear how the tariffs seemed the result of fitful recklessness rather than thoughtful consideration. 

There are more than a few other decisions--in which Roberts either wrote for the majority or was part of it--where Trump's major policies or pet preferences were blunted or rejected outright. Sometimes the Roberts majority did so summarily. As in, "give me a break!"

But whether the Roberts-led majority did so summarily or with full deliberation and opinion, recalling a sample of these decisions lends a less monochromatic picture of the Chief Justice and, particularly, his Court's perspective on Trump. Consider these:

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In Moore v. Harper, Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a 6-3 majority--above dissenting Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch--to reject a pet constitutional theory advanced by Trump and his allies. The so-called "Independent Legislature Doctrine" would have barred any judicial review of any state legislative gerrymandering.

For example, that doctrine would prevent a state supreme court from ruling that the gerrymandering enacted by the state's legislature violated constitutional rights under the state's law. So, in this case, it would have prevented the North Carolina Supreme Court from ruling that the extremely partisan gerrymandering by North Carolina's Republican controlled state legislature violated the state constitution's guarantees of voting rights and equal protection. In short, the state legislature's gerrymandering would be final and the North Carolina Supreme Court could do nothing about it.

Trump and his allies' pet theory, which was advanced to help guarantee additional pro-Trump voting districts, was emphatically rejected by the Roberts majority. The Chief Justice, together with Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett, voted with the three liberal Justices--Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. According to Roberts' opinion, despite the Supreme Court's hands-off approach to partisan gerrymandering by state legislatures, the state supreme courts are free to engage in the matter and prohibit such gerrymandering under their own state law.

The year before, a similar majority--again headed by Roberts, but before Justice Jackson replaced the retiring Stephen Breyer--had weighed in on another election-related matter against Trump and his allies.

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In Ritter v. Migliore, the 6-3 Roberts-led majority refused to invalidate certain mail-in ballots--another pet-target of Trump and his supporters. In this case, via a mere order without opinion, the Roberts majority, against the wishes of Trump allies, granted certiorari (i.e., accepted review) and summarily allowed the counting of timely mail-in ballots whose lone defect was their undated envelopes. Once again, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch were in dissent.

Last year, despite what seemed to some to be consistent Trump victories at the Court, Roberts-led majorities did stymie numerous efforts by the President, his administration, and his allies. Let's start with foreign affairs.

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In Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, in another unsigned order, the Chief Justice, joined by the three liberals plus Justice Barrett, summarily sustained a decision of a lower federal court that had directed the Trump administration to pay nearly $2 billion to a global non-profit health organization. In effect, a 5-4 majority mandated that the Trump administration disburse the funds for work already performed in the international AIDS prevention programs. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch were in dissent again, this time joined by Justice Kavanaugh.

Also in 2025, the same Roberts-led 5-4 majority rebuffed Trump's claim to immunity from New York State's criminal proceedings against him.

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In Trump v. New York, the then re-elected but not yet re-inaugurated Trump sought to expand the presidential immunity that the Court had recognized the year before in Trump v. U.S. The Court should go further, Trump argued, and recognize immunity for a president-elect--particularly against state court proceedings here. But again, the Chief Justice, joined by the three liberals plus Justice Barrett, summarily rejected Trump's request and allowed the New York proceedings to continue regarding Trump's multiple state convictions for business fraud. Also again, Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, joined by Kavanaugh, dissented.

[Footnote: I trust you don't take it seriously when those same dissenting Justices--in cases where they like what the states are doing--insist that the Court should defer to the states and allow the states to do what the states think is best. You don't, do you? They certainly don't advocate deference when they don't like what a state is doing.]

A few years earlier, Roberts had authored an opinion for the Court to reject another Trump argument against state criminal proceedings. This case involved Trump during his presidency.

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In Trump v. Vance, during his first term, the president's lawyers made several arguments for immunizing Trump against state grand jury subpoenas. The chief executive of the national government, they argued, should be shielded from bothersome state proceedings; that allowing state investigations of a president would subject him to harassment by any number of states; that a president is too busy to be distracted by state proceedings; etc. The Roberts majority rejected all the arguments and refused to recognize any broad immunity for a president from state process. A president could challenge a faulty state subpoena just like anyone else. But that's it.

Not surprisingly, Justices Thomas and Alito supported Trump and dissented. Moreover, in a concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Gorsuch, argued that the Court should require a more demanding level of justification for a state subpoena against a president before it can be approved. The Roberts majority declined to do that.

[Footnote: Same as above. You don't really take seriously the dissenters' "we should defer to the states" argument in other cases, do you?]

And here's a more recent case of Trump versus a state from the end of last year. The decision was another major loss for the administration.

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In Trump v. Illinois, the president--against the will of the Governor of Illinois and Mayor of Chicago--sought to activate the state's national guard. Trump claimed the power to do so. His lawyers argued that Trump has such power based both on the inherent constitutional authority of the office of the presidency, and on federal statutes providing for the protection of federal personnel and property. The Roberts-led majority, in response an emergency application brought by Trump, disagreed.

A five-Justice majority--Roberts, the three liberals, and Barrett--joined in an unsigned order rejecting Trump's claim that he could deploy the Illinois national guard to respond to an "invasion or a rebellion or danger of rebellion" in Chicago. That is, against large gatherings in Chicago protesting against Trump's immigration policies and, specifically, the tactics of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in the city.

The majority held that the Trump administration failed to show that activating the national guard was necessary. Together with Justice Kavanaugh who wrote a separate opinion, the majority upheld the lower court's order halting Trump's actions.

Not surprisingly, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented. They argued, among other things, that the president might have inherent constitutional authority to deploy a state's national guard under circumstances such as in this case. The Court, according to them, should have deferred to the judgment of the president--especially in his emergency application.

[Footnote: Same as above. "Defer-to-the-states" principle apparently applies only when the Justices advocating it like what the states are doing.]

In another immigration-related decision earlier last year, A.A.R.P. v. Trump, the Roberts-led majority put rebuffed Trump's deportation policy that elevated brutal efficiency over the barest of fair treatment.

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As part of Trump's policy of removing non-citizens who he claimed were part of a violent Venezuelan gang, he ordered that any Venezuelan citizen (over 14) could be “apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed" under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. In fact, they were being sent to a hellish maximum-security prison in El Salvador. After winding its way to the Supreme Court, the emergency application of Venezuelan detainees was granted. 

The Roberts-led 7-2 majority, in an unsigned per curiam opinion, ruled that the non-citizens were entitled, as a matter of constitutional due process, to some meaningful opportunity to challenge their removal. According to that majority, the bare notice that was being provided to the Venezuelans, lacking any useful information and only delivered the day before deportation--a description the Trump administration did not deny--“surely does not pass muster.” 

In an opinion by Alito, he and Thomas dissented. Amidst technical, legal arguments, they evinced--[What can I say?]--as little sympathy for the hardship of the immigrants as the Trump administration. The majority was clearly wrong, Alito argued, because the Court didn't have jurisdiction to rule on this emergency application under the procedural posture of the case. Moreover, he labelled the petition for emergency due process relief an "extraordinary demand." 

Whatever the dissenters doubts about the procedural merits of the case, there is no doubt that here, as in other cases thus far identified, Chief Justice Roberts and his majorities were again displaying, at best, impatience with Trump and his policies.

Two more cases. In both of these, the "defer-to-the-states" dissenters did side with the interests of the respective states. But in these cases, the states involved had policies hostile to abortion--a hostility the dissenters favored. So you would certainly expect the dissenters to vote the way they did.

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In the 2024 case of Oklahoma v. Department of Health and Human Service, the Roberts-led majority supported a pro-abortion position of the Biden administration. The majority rejected the strict hostility towards reproductive choice that has been a hallmark of Trump's presidencies and of his state allies.

In a bare unsigned order, the six-Justice majority--Roberts, the three liberals, Barrett and Kavanaugh--sided with the federal government's decision to deny to Oklahoma several million in funding because that state prohibited abortion referrals and even family-planning counseling. Oklahoma's strict anti-abortion policy contravened the federal Public Health Service Act. In a similarly bare unsigned order, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch voted to give Trump-friendly Oklahoma the funds.

As many readers surely know, the Court just issued another abortion-friendly order this month. Once again, the Roberts-led majority sided with reproductive rights and ruled against another Trump-friendly, abortion-hostile state.

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In Danco Laboratories v. Louisiana, the state had sought to stop any shipment of mifepristone into the state. The appeals court below granted Louisiana's request to stop shipments of the abortion-producing medication while litigation was pending. It reasoned that Louisiana was ultimately likely to succeed.

But in an unsigned order of a 7-2 majority, the Supreme Court blocked that ruling. The Chief Justice, the three liberals, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and, this time, with Gorsuch as well, sided with the mifepristone manufacturers and, of course with the women in Louisiana who order it. In ordering the shipments to continue, the majority were apparently not so sure that Louisiana would ultimately prevail.

As one would certainly expect, Justices Thomas and Alito dissented. In his separate opinion, Thomas argued that the 19th century Comstock Act, which prohibits all interstate distribution of contraception and abortion materials, should still be enforced. In his opinion, Alito argued that the interstate mailings of mifepristone effectively undermine the Court's 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson which overruled Roe v. Wade. But the Roberts-led majority seemingly had no interest in expanding the effect of the Trump-instigated Dobbs decision--let alone reviving the Comstock Act.

That's all for now. Did I cherry pick decisions to make my point? Guilty. Did I identify a very limited number of Roberts-led decisions that happened to have a common thread? Yes, guilty.

But the point is that the Roberts Court has not been uniformly supportive of Trump. No, not at all. It might seem that way to some who abhor some of the pro-Trump decisions. To be sure, at times it does seem as though the Court has been issuing one pro-Trump decision after another. Especially after some that might seem shockingly contradictory to established constitutional principles.

But a candid, dispassionate review of the Court's decisions shows that the Court has not been unidirectional when it comes to Trump, his administration, and his policies. And regarding the particular purpose here, Chief Justice Roberts and his majorities have actually handed Trump some very important defeats, and they have increasingly shown an impatience and even utter contempt for this president and his policies.

The Voting Rights Decision--A Fait Accompli

Let's look at the latest voting rights decision before returning to Roberts vs. Trump.

There is understandable dismay and outright disgust with last week's voting rights decision--mine included. But any shock and surprise about Louisiana v. Callais, whether from the dissenting Justices or liberal commentators, seems a bit forced. Anyone following the persistent direction of the Court's decisions on racial preferences over the last 40 years had to know that this was inevitable.

In short, the Court decided that the Voting Rights Act does not require and, more critically, constitutional Equal Protection does prohibit the consideration of race in drawing congressional districts. And it makes no difference if race is taken into account for the benign purpose of protecting the voting rights of minorities. Nope. Creating or preserving Black-majority districts is discrimination on the basis of race against non-Black voters.

 

At least since 1986, with conservative appointees of Presidents Nixon and Reagan taking control of the Court, the predominant view among the Justices has been a discomfort, if not outright hostility toward so-called "reverse discrimination." Race-conscious policies, even to redress the lasting effects of the historic discrimination against Blacks in this country, have been viewed as invidious--even if sometimes tolerated--discrimination on the basis of race.

The protection of "insular and discrete minorities" had previously been understood to be the primary purpose of the Constitution's post-Civil War guarantee of equal rights. The elimination of government-approved mistreatment of minorities was recognized as the motivating policy underlying the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The most celebrated footnote in Supreme Court history--Justice Harlan Stone's footnote 4 in the Court's 1938 decision in U. S. v. Carolene Products Co.--articulated that rubric. 

Accordingly, the protection of historically oppressed minorities remained established constitutional law for a while. But later, ideologically conservative Republican appointees began to revise the aim of equal protection and the concept of constitutionally repugnant discrimination. 

In its 1986 decision in Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., with Nixon and Reagan appointees now dominating the Court, a bare majority of the Justices invalidated a program that provided preferential protection against layoffs to Black employees. Those minority workers had been recently hired to remedy past discrimination in hiring. But this benign racial preference was viewed as unconstitutional discrimination against white employees. The Court made clear that protection of the white majority would be considered just as compelling as the protection of the racial minority--regardless of which group had suffered the historic discrimination that led to the Equal Protection Clause.

Within a short time thereafter, retirements from the Court gave Reagan the opportunity to fill vacancies with like-minded appointments. Especially notable were Reagan's elevation of William Rehnquist to replace the retired Chief Justice Warren Burger, and his appointment of Antonin Scalia to fill Rehnquist's former position. Like Reagan, these two appointees were mostly unsympathetic to the civil rights emphasis on protecting Black Americans.

Let's remember--as some have recalled to bring realism to the nostalgia over Ronald Reagan--that shortly after his election, he opposed extending the Voting Rights Act and sought to dilute its provisions until he was politically embarrassed to do otherwise. Remember also that he actually began his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi where three civil rights workers had been murdered, and he used the occasion to exalt states' rights and to criticize the civil rights laws as an insult to the South. And just as revolting (in my humble view)--in a reversal of Nixon and Carter policy--Reagan supported federal support for "Christian" colleges and universities that openly practiced racial segregation. (The Supreme Court ruled against his position and upheld the Nixon-Carter policy in Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 1983.) 

Reagan's selections of Rehnquist and Scalia were fitting. Rehnquist, when a law clerk at the Supreme Court, wrote a memo in support of the "separate but equal" doctrine and in opposition to the ultimate decision in Brown v. Board of Education to end racial segregation. And while on the Court himself, he was the lone dissenting vote in the Bob Jones Univ. case to restore federal support for racially segregated colleges and universities.

As for Scalia, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a single vote in which he supported civil rights for Blacks. Whether the cases before the Court involved prosecutors removing Blacks from juries, or universities trying to diversify racially to remedy past discrimination in admissions, or any other civil rights-related issue, Scalia consistently sided against the interests of Black Americans.

So, it was not at all surprising what the Court ruled, with Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Scalia in the majority, in its 1989 decision in City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co. As in Wygant, three years earlier, the Court invalidated another remedial racial preference program. Over the three liberal Justices in dissent, the majority held that the program to set aside 30% of the city's construction contracts to minority-owned businesses violated Equal Protection. The Court reinforced its Wygant decision that any racial classification--whether it discriminated against minorities or sought to redress that historic discrimination--was constitutionally suspect and nearly impossible to justify.

From there to the Court's rulings against affirmative action in school admissions was simply a natural progression. In 2003, in a pair of decisions--Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger--the Court severely limited the benign consideration of race in college and university admissions. By a vote of 6-3 in Gratz, the Court invalidated an admissions program where race seemed to be a dispositive factor. In the Court's words, nearly every “underrepresented minority” was admitted. And by a bare 5-4 vote in Grutter, the Court upheld an admissions program where race was a single factor among many in a very "individualized review" of each applicant. The four dissenters condemned the admission of--in the words of the major dissenting opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist--"less qualified underrepresented minorities," whatever the purported purpose.

For the next several years, the Court seemed ready to end racial considerations in admissions policies entirely. It did so unqualifiedly in 2023 in SFFA v. Harvard and Univ. of North Carolina. The plaintiffs--felicitously self-named "Students for Fair Admissions"--did not seek fair admissions at all in the case, but only an end to any consideration of race. (Not athletes, not legacies, not donor families, etc., etc.) The 6-3 majority spoke through the opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts--who, by the way, was a law clerk for Rehnquist, and then worked in the Reagan administration DOJ, where he advocated against the Voting Rights Act. (Not surprisingly then, ten years before SFFA in the 2013 case of Shelby County v. Holder, he wrote for the 5-4 majority to invalidate a key section of the Voting Rights Act. The required federal "pre-clearance," before election laws could be changed in sections of the country that had historically practiced voting rights discrimination, was now, according to Roberts, unconstitutionally outdated.)

In SFFA, Roberts' argument for the majority against all racial preferences--whether to redress historic discrimination or to insure diversity of the student body--was the Constitution's supposed mandate for "color blindness." As Roberts explained it, "Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it...The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color." 

The three dissenters--liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson--argued that race consciousness had actually advanced the Constitution's guarantee of equality. They also reminded the majority that the very purpose of the Equal Protection Clause was to protect the newly freed Black minority, not exactly color blindness.

Now, three years later, last week in Louisiana v. Callais, the very same majority and minority have made the very same arguments.

For the same majority: the consideration of race in creating voting districts violates Equal Protection, even for the benign purpose of remedying past discrimination. Preferring one race necessarily disfavors another. Discrimination can't mean one thing when it hurts Black voters, and something else when it disfavors whites. Elimination of racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.

For the same dissenters: race consciousness to create and preserve majority Black voting districts helps to insure the Constitution's guarantee of equality in voting. That guarantee, foremost, was the protection of the historically discriminated against Black minority. Prohibiting any consideration of race in redistricting hinders, not bolsters, constitutional equality.

The fact is, regardless of how devastating and distressing this most recent voting rights decision might be to those who actually support the voting rights laws--again, me included--it's no surprise at all. Anyone who has followed the direction of the Court for the past few decades could have predicted the majority and dissenting opinions. Even written them.

Louisiana v. Callais was the preordained consequence of the relentless whittling away of the civil rights era. If the commitment of that era was to eliminate, as much as possible, the remnants of this country's savage mistreatment of Black persons, the commitment now is to treat race as though the remnants of that savage mistreatment are now all gone. There are consequences of a 6-3 politically conservative Republican majority. And there are consequences of that growing body of decisions that has been pointing one way for at least 40 years.

We will now witness the aftermath of Louisiana v. Callais. Like the decision itself, the aftermath shouldn't be a surprise.

Roberts vs. Trump: Barely Disguised Contempt

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer Prize winning former Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, recently put it this way: the Chief Justice’s “vexation with Mr. Trump verges on acute concern.” [Linda Greenhouse, Roberts Is Losing Patience With Trump, NY Times, Feb. 24, 2026.]

Indeed, the “gratuitous” paragraph Greenhouse excerpted, from Roberts’ majority opinion rejecting Trump’s asserted tariff power, reveals at least “vexation.” Here are several such lines from that paragraph and the preceding one:

[T]he President imposed a 25% duty on most Canadian and Mexican imports and a 10% duty on most Chinese imports. [He also] imposed a duty “on all imports from all trading partners” of at least 10%. Dozens of nations faced higher rates. And these tariffs applied notwithstanding any extant trade agreements.

One month after imposing the 10% drug trafficking tariffs on Chinese goods, he increased the rate to 20%. One month later, he removed a statutory exemption for Chinese goods under $800. Less than a week after imposing the reciprocal tariffs, the President increased the rate on Chinese goods from 34% to 84%. The very next day, he increased the rate further still, to 125%...The President has also shifted sets of goods into and out of the reciprocal tariff framework (exempting from reciprocal tariffs beef, fruits, coffee, tea, spices, and some fertilizers). And he has issued a variety of other adjustments. See, e.g., extending “the suspension of heightened reciprocal tariffs” on Chinese imports.

[Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (2026).]

The obvious--whether actually gratuitous--point is that this is capricious conduct of an erratic man.

But the tariffs case was hardly the first time that Chief Justice Roberts has shown “acute concern” about Trump. A notable illustration from back in Trump’s first term was Roberts’ opinion for the Court in the Muslim Ban—I mean “Travel Ban”—case. While his majority opinion upheld Trump’s immigration restrictions at issue in that case, Roberts took pains to point out that his opinion was not an endorsement of “a particular President,” but about “the authority of the Presidency itself.”

Even then, Roberts highlighted the argument that “this President’s words strike at fundamental standards of respect and tolerance, in violation of our constitutional tradition.” And though he emphasized that the constitutional question in the case was "not whether to denounce the statements,” Roberts’ denunciation was clear.

In a few paragraphs, perhaps as “gratuitous” as the ones in the Tariffs case, Roberts recapped many of Trump’s ugly statements about Muslims. Here’s part of what Roberts included in his opinion:

[W]hile a candidate on the campaign trail, the President published a “Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration” that called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”…Then-candidate Trump also stated that “Islam hates us” and asserted that the United States was “having problems with Muslims coming into the country.” Shortly after being elected, when asked whether violence in Europe had affected his plans to “ban Muslim immigration,” the President replied, “You know my plans. All along, I’ve been proven to be right” …[O]ne of the President’s campaign advisers explained that when the President “first announced [the first proposed ban], he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally’…[A]fter issuing [the first replacement order], the President expressed regret that his prior order had been “watered down” and called for a “much tougher version” of his “Travel Ban.” Shortly before the release of the Proclamation, he stated that the “travel ban . . . should be far larger, tougher, and more specific,” but “stupidly that would not be politically correct” …[Thereafter,] the President retweeted links to three anti-Muslim propaganda videos.

[Trump v. Hawaii (2018).]

Roberts immediately contrasted Trump’s conduct with that of other presidents who used their power to speak inspiringly to the Nation “to espouse the principles of religious freedom and tolerance on which this Nation was founded.” Notably, he gave examples of presidents, beginning with Washington, who spoke out against bigotry against Jews and Muslims. But then, pointedly, he remarked that “Presidents [have] performed unevenly in living up to those inspiring words.” Trump, anyone?

Beyond his apparent contempt for the man now occupying the White House for a second time, Roberts has also written opinions for the Court or voted in support of such opinions that rejected Trump’s pet policies or his defenses in cases against him. Despite the conventional wisdom otherwise, Roberts and his Court have actually stymied Trump and his administration numerous times in recent years, in addition to the tariffs case.

We’ll take a look at some of these in the next post.