最高法院于7月1日结束任期，部分批准了前总统唐纳德·特朗普的诉求在任期间绝对的总统豁免权同时将与他1月6日的起诉相关的具体问题推迟到下级法院进一步考虑。这一决定与法院本学期的其他裁决是意料之中的，其中包括一系列高调而不受欢迎的意见，这些意见继续将美国法律进一步推向右翼。
高等法院拒绝屈从于公众意见，这显然无助于提高它在美国人中间的地位538的平均投票率最高法院的净支持率在5月底创下历史新低-22.8个百分点。自那以后，支持率略有上升，但自2021年我们开始跟踪这个问题以来，最高法院在任期结束时的支持率仍然最低，为-17.2分。这甚至超过了2022年推翻罗诉韦德案的决定的后果。
这种不满也反映在其他民调中。在…里美联社和NORC的民意调查从6月下旬开始，只有16%的受访者表示他们对最高法院“非常有信心”，低于2020年2月的28%。A马奎特大学法学院民意调查从五月份开始，在过去的四年中，公众对法院的信任度下降了15个百分点。
在持续不断的新闻报道后各种道德丑闻和个人恩怨在过去几年中，公众对法官的个人中立性也不太有信心。在美联社-NORC民意调查中，70%的美国人表示，他们认为法官在裁决案件时更多地受自己的信仰和意识形态的指导，而不是保持公正。
在这种环境下，公众对法院判决的意见显得尤为重要。毕竟，我们知道法官仍然担心对这个机构的态度——尽管他们许多断言那法院是非政治性的。虽然在过去四年中，不到一半(45%)的法院重大案件*是根据纯粹的意识形态路线做出的裁决，但那些更具争议性的裁决在公众中明显不受欢迎，根据调查引导经过苏格兰波尔这是一个由一群学者合作的民意调查。
完全依赖保守派多数的裁决的平均净支持率为-4.1点，而至少有一名自由派法官占多数的裁决的平均净支持率则相反，为+4.1点。(实地进行苏格兰波尔调查以前最高法院公布了每个案件的判决，所以他们的数字没有反映出公众对每个判决的反应。但是这些数据仍然给了我们一个很好的基线，让我们了解公众对这些决定的感受。)
事实证明，最高法院在裁决时可能会考虑公众舆论的这些趋势当...的时候发布它的决定，更早地发布更受欢迎的裁决——然后发布更不受欢迎的裁决。
自2021年以来，最高法院首先在5月和6月初至6月中旬宣布了大多数一致(或接近一致)的决定。这可能有几个原因——也许法官们想在更有争议的裁决公布之前，创造一个和谐温和的法庭。或者可能是因为这些案件的特点是法官之间的分歧较少，因此需要较少的时间来准备意见。
不管什么原因，在此期间发布的决定也最受公众欢迎，在SCOTUSPoll的调查中，平均有+9的净支持:
但数据也显示，自2021年以来，最高法院在任期的最后几天发布了大多数保守的决定。那些不受欢迎的裁决使公众平均支持率下降了10个百分点以上。
这种模式似乎符合一种策略，即在媒体已经发表意见之后，让法院宣布意见，从而将公众的反弹最小化开始决定这个学期的叙事就在7月4日假期之前，公众不会密切关注。这种方法可能会有回报，至少从潜在裁决做出之前的态度来看是如此:最高法院裁决的平均净支持率在任期结束时为-3个百分点。虽然这不是一个很大的数字，但它接近甚至肯定比法院最近公布的一些裁决的支持率高得多，如多布斯诉杰克逊妇女健康组织和总统豁免权案。
这是一个新现象，至少与四年前艾米·科尼·巴雷特大法官的任命创造了6比3的保守派多数之前法院的表现相比是如此。2020年，最高法院实际上公布了许多一致或接近一致的判决结束的术语，没有可辨别的模式时，保守的观点被传下来(只有两个SCOTUSPoll问):
这表明法官们意识到他们的裁决在最近几年是多么不受欢迎，并且正在尝试不同的策略来最小化反对——当然，除了宣布更受欢迎的裁决。正如首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨在1997年所说他在特朗普豁免案中的观点“不同于政治分支和一般公众，最高法院不能把注意力主要集中在诸如公众意见或当今政治之类的事情上”。
我们还得再等几周才能确定公众对法院最新裁决的反应。但是不要指望法官们会很快改变方针。
脚注
*定义为在SCOTUSPoll中询问的案例。
Why the Supreme Court tends to release unpopular decisions late in its term
The Supreme Court ended its term July 1, partially granting former President Donald Trump's claim toabsolute presidential immunity while in officewhile punting specific questions related to his Jan. 6 prosecution back down to lower courts for further consideration. That decision was par for the course with the court's other rulings this term, which featured a set of high-profile and unpopular opinions that continued to push American law even further to the right.
The high court's refusal to bend to public opinion obviously hasn't done much to improve its standing among Americans: According to538's polling average, the Supreme Court's net approval rating hit an all-time low of -22.8 percentage points at the end of May. Approval has ticked up slightly since then, but the court still has the lowest approval at the end of a term since we began tracking the question in 2021, at -17.2 points. That surpasses even the aftermath of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
This dissatisfaction is reflected across other polling, too. Inan AP-NORC pollfrom late June, only 16 percent of respondents said that they had a "great deal" of confidence in the Supreme Court, down from 28 percent in February 2020. AMarquette University Law School pollfrom May found a similar decline of 15 percentage points in public confidence in the court over the last four years.
And after a consistent trickle of news aboutthe various ethics scandalsandpersonal feudsof the justices over the last few years, the public isn't too confident in their personal neutrality either. In the AP-NORC poll, 70 percent of Americans said that they believe the justices are guided more by their own beliefs and ideologies than by being impartial when it comes to deciding cases.
Amid this environment, public opinion about the court's decisions seems especially critical. After all, we know that the justicesare still concernedabout attitudes toward the institution — despite theirmany assertionsthatthe courtisnonpolitical. And while less than half (45 percent) of the court's major cases* over the last four years were decided along purely ideological lines, those more divisive rulings have been notably less popular among the public,according tosurveysconductedbySCOTUSPoll, a polling collaboration between a group of academics.
The average net support for decisions that relied entirely on a conservative majority was -4.1 points, while the average net approval of rulings that included at least one liberal justice in the majority was the reverse, +4.1 points. (SCOTUSPoll surveys are fieldedbeforethe Supreme Court releases decisions in each case, so their numbers don't capture how public opinion may have reacted to each ruling. But the data still gives us a good baseline on how the public feels about these decisions.)
As it turns out, the Supreme Court may be considering these trends in public opinion in determiningwhento release its decisions, putting out more popular rulings earlier — and more unpopular ones later.
Since 2021, the Supreme Court has handed down most of its unanimous (or close-to-unanimous) decisions first, in May and early-to-mid June. That could be for a few reasons — perhaps the justices want to create a narrative of a congenial and moderate court before the more contentious rulings are released. Or perhaps it's because those cases feature less disagreement among the justices and therefore require less time to prepare opinions.
Regardless of the reason, the decisions released during that period are also the most popular with the general public, with an average of about +9 net support in surveys from SCOTUSPoll:
But the data also shows that since 2021, the court has released a majority of its conservative-only decisions in the final few days of the term. Those unpopular rulings tank average public support by over 10 points.
This pattern seems in line with a strategy to minimize public backlash by having the court announce opinions after the media has alreadybegun to settle on a narrative for the termand right before the July Fourth holiday, when the general public isn't paying as close attention. That approach may pay dividends, at least based on attitudes about potential rulings before they were made: The average net support for the court's rulings at the end of its term is -3 points. While that's not a great number, it's close to even and certainly much higher than support for some of the court's most-publicized recent rulings, like Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and the presidential immunity case.
This is a new phenomenon, at least when compared to how the court behaved before Justice Amy Coney Barrett's appointment created a 6-3 conservative majority four years ago. In 2020, the court actually released many of its unanimous or close-to-unanimous decisions at theendof the term, and there was no discernible pattern of when the conservative-only opinions were handed down (there were only two that SCOTUSPoll asked about):
This suggests that the justices are aware of how unpopular their rulings have been in recent years and are trying different strategies to minimize backlash — except, of course, for handing down more popular decisions. As Chief Justice John Roberts said inhis opinion in the Trump immunity case, "unlike the political branches and the public at large, the court cannot afford to fixate" primarily on things like public opinion or the politics of the day.
We'll have to wait a few more weeks to be certain of how the public is reacting to the court's latest rulings. But don't expect the justices to change course anytime soon.
Footnotes
*Defined as a case that was asked about in a SCOTUSPoll.
