Sotomayor: Supreme Court emergency docket appeals by Trump 'unprecedented' [View all]

Source: The Hill

04/10/26 11:59 AM ET


Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a Thursday speech at the University of Alabama School of Law said the Trump administration’s increase in emergency appeals is “unprecedented in the court’s history.” The emergency docket is made up of appeals that seek quick intervention from justices in cases that are still in the lower courts. The administration has filed 34 emergency applications since President Trump retook the White House.

In a vast majority of the cases, the Supreme Court has sided with the administration and has often lifted the orders of lower court judges who found the administration’s policies were likely illegal. Cases on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket are decided quickly without oral arguments and often have no explanations.

Sotomayor said the Supreme Court had previously taken the position that “we should be letting the lower courts decide these issues first before we the highest court of the land make the final decision. We should make sure that all the facts are fully aired below,” she stated. Doing so, she said, was meant to ensure that every argument is considered.

“That the intermediate courts have looked at this, and we really shouldn’t take cases and decide them until there is a circuit split, meaning that circuit courts across the country have disagreed on the answer, because then we are sure that every viable and important argument has actually been aired, that all of the important facts have actually been brought out in the various cases,” she said. Sotomayor added that “since we are the final word, we should do it with some deliberation to make sure we get it right.” Sotomayor said the court had done that throughout its history, until more recent times.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/5825692-sotomayor-trump-emergency-docket/