Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 94.0

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

27 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

why these protections that are sufficient in every other con-
text  would  be  insufficient  here.  It  simply  asserts  that  it
would  be  “untenable”  and  would  deprive  immunity  of  its
“ ‘intended  effect.’ ”    Ante,  at  31  (quoting  Fitzgerald,  457 
U. S.,  at  756).    The  majority  hazards  an  explanation  that
the use of official-acts evidence will “raise a unique risk that 
the jurors’ deliberations will be prejudiced by their views of 
the  President’s  policies  and  performance  while  in  office.” 
Ante, at 31.  That “unique risk,” however, is not a product 
of  introducing  official-acts  evidence.  It  is  simply  the  risk
involved in any suit against a former President, including
the private-acts prosecutions the majority says it would al-
low. 

VII 
Today’s decision to grant former Presidents immunity for 
their official acts is deeply wrong.  As troubling as this crim-
inal immunity doctrine is in theory, the majority’s applica-
tion of the doctrine to the indictment in this case is perhaps 
even more troubling.  In the hands of the majority, this new 
official-acts immunity operates as a one-way ratchet.

First,  the  majority  declares  all  of  the  conduct  involving
the Justice Department and the Vice President to be official 
conduct, see ante, at 19–24, yet it refuses to designate any 
course of conduct alleged in the indictment as private, de-
spite concessions from Trump’s counsel.6  Trump’s counsel
conceded,  for  example,  that  the  allegation  that  Trump 

—————— 

6 The majority protests that it is “adher[ing] to time-tested practices” 
by “deciding what is required to dispose of this case and remanding” to 
lower courts to sort out the details.  Ante, at 41.  Yet it implicitly acknowl-
edges that it reaches far beyond what any lower court considered or any
party briefed by designating certain conduct official in the first instance. 
See ibid. (noting “the lack of factual analysis in the lower courts, and the
lack of briefing on how to categorize the conduct alleged”).  In reaching
out to shield some conduct as official while refusing to recognize any con-
duct as unofficial, the majority engages in judicial activism, not judicial 
restraint.