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As Republicans reel from their bruising midterm election losses, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is hoping some of the court’s biggest conservative rulings will eventually be overturned.
The liberal justice singled out the court’s landmark 2024 presidential immunity ruling, which shields presidents from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their core constitutional powers and provides presumptive protection for other official acts. Her colleagues, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, are both in their late 70s, raising questions about their potential retirements and whether a Democratic-controlled Senate could complicate Trump’s efforts to replace them with fellow conservatives.
“We saw the outpouring of voters on Tuesday … I tell people all the time, there’s no excuse for not voting. There just isn’t. Apathy is not acceptable,” Sotomayor said.
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“I dissent a lot. I’m hoping that the court will take back some of the crazy things that it’s done. I’m only joking — maybe not,” she said at the same event. “No, seriously. You know, I’ve spoken openly about this, there’s some opinions that I hope in my lifetime will get overturned. The immunity case is one of them.”
The justice spent most of the hourlong event discussing the importance of civics education, stopping at times to discuss the state of American democracy. At one point, Sotomayor remarked that it would take “some hard work” for the United States to get back on an “even keel.”
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“There have been some systemic changes in my court’s jurisprudence in many areas of law,” she stated. “We’ll settle down, too. Not quite sure when. But we will. And a new order will be established that people will begin to understand.”
Sotomayor specifically singled out the Supreme Court’s 2024 landmark ruling on presidential immunity as something she would like to see revisited.
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In Trump v. United States, the case in question, the court ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within their core constitutional powers and at least presumptive immunity for other official acts. The justices ruled that former presidents have no immunity from prosecution for unofficial conduct, leaving lower courts to distinguish between official acts protected by the decision and private conduct that remains subject to criminal prosecution.
Sotomayor sharply criticized the ruling in her 2024 dissent, arguing that the court’s conservative majority had effectively turned the president into a “king above the law.”
“There are some norms we may have lost forever,” she said. “But I don’t think that we will fail as a democracy. But I think we’re going to have a hard patch figuring out what that means.”
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