Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 86

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

19 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

(and baseless) civil suits would hamper the Executive may 
have been justified in Fitzgerald, but a well-founded federal 
criminal  prosecution  poses  no  comparable  danger  to  the
functioning of the Executive Branch. 

2 
At the same time, the public interest in a federal criminal
prosecution of a former President is vastly greater than the
public interest in a private individual’s civil suit.  All nine 
Justices in Fitzgerald explicitly recognized that distinction. 
The  five-Justice  majority  noted  that  there  was  a  greater
public interest “in criminal prosecutions” than in “actions
for civil damages.”  457 U. S., at 754, n. 37.  Chief Justice 
Burger’s concurrence accordingly emphasized that the ma-
jority’s immunity was “limited to civil damages claims,” ra-
ther than “criminal prosecution.”  Id., at 759–760.  The four 
dissenting Justices agreed that a “contention that the Pres-
ident is immune from criminal prosecution in the courts,” if
ever made, would not “be credible.”  Id., at 780 (White, J., 
dissenting).  At the very least, the Fitzgerald Court did not 
expect that its balancing test would lead to the same out-
come in the criminal context. 

The public’s interest in prosecution is transparent: a fed-
eral prosecutor herself acts on behalf of the United States. 
Even the majority acknowledges that the “[f]ederal crimi-
nal laws seek to redress ‘a wrong to the public’ as a whole,
not  just  ‘a  wrong  to  the  individual,’ ”  ante,  at  13  (quoting 
Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657, 668 (1892)), such that 
there is “a compelling ‘public interest in fair and effective 
law enforcement,’ ” ante, at 13 (quoting Vance, 591 U. S., at 
808).  Indeed, “our historic commitment to the rule of law” 
is “nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that 
. . . ‘guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.’ ” Nixon, 418 
U. S., at 708–709 (quoting Berger v. United States, 295 U. S. 
78, 88 (1935)).

The public interest in criminal prosecution is particularly