A rare public clash between two sitting Supreme Court justices erupted Monday when Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply criticized the court’s handling of emergency cases involving policies pushed by President Donald Trump — prompting Justice Brett Kavanaugh to push back in defense of the court.
The exchange unfolded during a joint appearance at a federal courthouse event in Washington, D.C., where the two justices discussed the Supreme Court’s increasing use of emergency rulings, often referred to as the court’s “shadow docket.”
Jackson, who has frequently dissented from those emergency orders, warned that the court’s growing willingness to intervene early in politically charged cases is troubling.
“I just feel like this uptick in the court’s willingness to get involved … is a real unfortunate problem,” Jackson said during the discussion, according to NBC News.
Her comments reflect frustration among some legal scholars and critics who argue that the court’s conservative majority has increasingly used emergency rulings to advance major policy changes without the full briefing and argument typically required for Supreme Court decisions.
In recent months, the court has issued emergency orders affecting several high-profile elements of the Trump administration’s agenda.
Those rulings have included decisions allowing the administration to move forward with plans to fire thousands of federal workers, assert greater control over agencies that previously operated with some independence, and implement parts of its immigration enforcement policies.
Jackson warned that the court’s approach could undermine the judicial process by signaling how the justices might ultimately rule in cases that have not yet fully worked their way through the courts.
Such signals, she suggested, could distort the way lower courts handle those disputes.
“It’s a warped kind of proceeding,” Jackson said.
She added that the trend is “not serving the court or this country well.”
According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Jackson’s remarks drew applause from a packed courtroom audience that included several lower court judges.
Kavanaugh, however, defended the court’s handling of emergency requests, arguing that the justices have little choice when urgent appeals are filed by the federal government.
“None of us enjoy this,” Kavanaugh said, according to NBC News.
He noted that emergency applications are not unique to the Trump administration and pointed out that the court faced similar requests during the Biden administration as well.
When the federal government seeks emergency intervention, Kavanaugh argued, the Supreme Court must decide whether to act.
The unusual public disagreement offered a rare glimpse into tensions that usually remain confined to written opinions.
Justices often debate and criticize one another in formal rulings and dissents, but open exchanges during public appearances are far less common.
“The justices have aired their disagreements in written opinions,” NBC News reported, “but this was a rare example of two justices entering into a public debate about internal court business.”
