“Only Joking – Maybe Not”: Sotomayor Takes Aim At Supreme Court’s Presidential Immunity Ruling

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Saturday she hopes the Supreme Court will one day reverse its 2024 ruling that gave former presidents broad protection from criminal prosecution, calling it one of several decisions she wants to see overturned in her lifetime.

She was speaking at a public discussion on civic education at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, according to Just the News.

 ”I dissent a lot. I’m hoping that the court will take back some of the crazy things that it’s done,” she told the audience, then added that she was “only joking – maybe not.”

She dropped the joke a moment later.

 ”You know, I’ve spoken openly about this, there are some opinions that I hope in my lifetime will get overturned,” Sotomayor said. 

“The immunity case is one of them.” 

No video or transcript of the event has been posted that we could find, so the remarks come from the reporters who were in the room.

The decision she means is Trump v. United States, decided July 1, 2024. Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion held that a president is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority and “at least presumptively immune” for his other official acts, with no immunity for unofficial conduct. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined in full, and Amy Coney Barrett joined all but one part.

Sotomayor wrote the principal dissent, joined by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” she wrote, and closed:

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” 

Jackson filed a separate dissent.

Saturday’s remarks are the sharpest in a pattern. In February 2025, in Louisville, she said she “had a hard time” with the immunity case and that the court would probably gain public support if it went more slowly in undoing precedent, according to AP’s report. Last September, in New York, she told an audience that Americans may not grasp the difference between a president and a king.