Chief Justices tend to focus on the integrity of the court as an institution.
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Chief Justice John Roberts is showing a new willingness to side with the U.S. Supreme Court’s liberal wing after the divisive confirmation fight over Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Roberts joined the liberals Wednesday in two rulings that left the conservatives in dissent. Most notably, he cast the deciding vote to order a new look at the mental competence of a death row inmate who says he can’t remember the crimes he committed.
The votes add to an unmistakable pattern, offering fresh indications that Roberts is in no hurry to oversee a conservative legal revolution. The chief justice has also joined 5-4 orders that blocked President Donald Trump from curbing bids for asylum at the Mexican border and stopped Louisiana from enforcing new abortion restrictions.
“Chief Justice Roberts’s voting pattern this year reflects a change,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston.
It’s too early to say whether the votes mark the beginning of a lasting shift, or merely a pause on the court’s anticipated move to the right after Kavanaugh’s confirmation to succeed the retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Since being appointed in 2005 by Republican President George W. Bush, Roberts, 64, has established himself as a solid conservative, though usually one inclined toward incremental change.
From 2005 through the end of the 2016-17 term, Roberts had provided the fifth vote for a liberal outcome in a case argued before the court only four times, according to Adam Feldman, creator of empiricalscotus.com, which tracks Supreme Court trends. The biggest was Roberts’s 2012 vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act, a decision that embittered conservatives who had supported his nomination.
