It’s Official: The Supreme Court Ignores Its Own Precedent

Democrats in Congress have been developing proposals for the reform of the Supreme Court for years—and this week, we learned that President Joe Biden is warming to the idea. Although a series of controversial cases recently decided by the Court has given new impetus to this movement, the need for an overhaul lies less in the rulings’ seeming rightward swing and more in the pretexts the justices have used to reach them. The Court’s reasoning is becoming more and more incoherent as the conservative majority tosses aside even its own recent jurisprudence in order to serve ideological dogma.

This month’s Supreme Court decision granting presidents at least presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for much of what they do in office is a case in point.

It seems reasonable on its face: A democracy can hardly function if the Justice Department is free to prosecute a former president for executing policies that some successor happens to dislike. Read as an effort to ward off such a scenario, the concept is sound—but the details choke it. How is a prosecutor to distinguish “official from unofficial actions,” the opinion wonders, before offering guidance for answering that question.

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