1979—Give Harry Pregerson credit for candor. At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination to a Ninth Circuit seat, Pregerson is asked what he would do “if a decision in a particular case was required by case law or statute … yet that [decision] offended your own conscience.” Pregerson responds: “I would try and find a way to follow my conscience and do what I perceived to be right and just.” (No, he isn’t talking about recusing.)
Over the ensuing four decades up to, and even beyond, his death in November 2017, Pregerson, though less flamboyantly outspoken than his colleague (and fellow Carter appointee) Stephen Reinhardt, will prove himself nearly Reinhardt’s match in his feats of lawless judicial activism.
2013—“Any society that relies on nine unelected judges to resolve the most serious issues of the day is not a functioning democracy.”
A sound observation, to be sure. But what’s remarkable is that the person uttering it is Justice Anthony Kennedy, who throughout his tenure on the Supreme Court will do as much as any justice to intrude willy-nilly on the democratic processes on the “most serious issues of the day.”
2018—Federal district judge Edward Chen issues a preliminary injunction barring the Department of Homeland Security from implementing its decisions to terminate its Temporary Protected Status designations for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador. Never mind that the statute governing TPS designations specifically provides: “There is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary of Homeland Security] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state under this subsection.” Never mind that these supposedly temporary designations had been in place for many years (since 1997 for Sudan). Never mind that DHS had determined that the conditions that initially justified the designations no longer existed.
2025—As part of a scheme to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and two other Supreme Court justices before the Court issued its leaked ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Nicholas Roske flew across the country with a handgun, nearly 40 rounds of ammunition, a tactical knife, lock-picking tools, a nail punch, a crowbar, duct tape, pepper spray, zip ties, and hiking boots with padding on the soles to move quietly. Roske was detected outside Kavanaugh’s home at 1:05 a.m. on June 8, 2022 and was arrested. In April 2025, he pled guilty to attempting to kill Kavanaugh.
At his sentencing hearing, federal district judge Deborah Boardman rejects the Department of Justice’s request for a sentence of at least 30 years and instead imposes a sentence of barely eight years (97 months). Boardman expressly reduces Roske’s sentence because of “the fact that she, a transgender woman, will be sent to a male-only [Bureau of Prisons] facility.” Boardman declines to use Roske’s legal name and instead calls him Sophie, and she states that she is “heartened by how this terrible offense has drawn the Roske family closer and has helped them understand
Ms. Roske’s profound mental health struggles and accept her for who she is.”