“DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. v. J. G. G., ET AL.
“ON APPLICATION TO VACATE THE ORDERS ISSUED BY THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
“[April 7, 2025]
“JUSTICE JACKSON, dissenting.
“I join JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR’s dissent in full and would deny the application for all the reasons she explains. I write separately to question the majority’s choice to intervene on the eve of the District Court’s preliminary-injunction hearing without scheduling argument or receiving merits briefing. This fly-by-night approach to the work of the Supreme Court is not only misguided. It is also dangerous.
“The President of the United States has invoked a centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison. For lovers of liberty, this should be quite concerning. Surely, the question whether such Government action is consistent with our Constitution and laws warrants considerable thought and attention from the Judiciary. That was why the District Court issued a temporary restraining order to prevent immediate harm to the targeted individuals while the court considered the lawfulness of the Government’s conduct. But this Court now sees fit to intervene, hastily dashing off a four-paragraph per curiam opinion discarding the District Court’s order based solely on a new legal pronouncement that, one might have thought, would require significant deliberation.
“When this Court decides complex and monumental issues, it typically allows the lower courts to address those TRUMP v. J. G. G. JACKSON, J., dissenting matters first; it then receives full briefing, hears oral argument, deliberates internally, and, finally, issues a reasoned opinion. Those standard processes may not always yield correct results. But when we deviate from them, the risk of error always substantially increases. Today’s rushed conclusion—that those challenging the Government’s action can only pursue their claims through habeas—is Exhibit A.
“I lament that the Court appears to have embarked on a new era of procedural variability, and that it has done so in such a casual, inequitable, and, in my view, inappropriate manner. See Department of Education v. California, 604 U. S. __ , __ (2025) (J ACKSON, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1–2). At least when the Court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong. See, e.g., Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). With more and more of our most significant rulings taking place in the shadows of our emergency docket, today’s Court leaves less and less of a trace. But make no mistake: We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences. It just seems we are now less willing to face it.”