The worst chief justice of all time

[Passages]

Move over, Roger Taney and Melville Fuller.

Lisa Needham
Jul 10, 2025

American history has no shortage of legendarily bad chief justices and disgraceful decisions. But Chief Justice John Roberts has overseen the wholesale corruption and capture of the Supreme Court, and history should look back on his tenure with revulsion.

This isn’t about whether there are individual cases from the past that are worse than any individual Roberts-era decision. It’s that compared to previous chief justices, the entire arch of the Robert Court has been about enshrining discrimination into law and protecting the powerful at the expense of the powerless.

The Taney Court
When people talk about the worst Supreme Court era, they’re often talking about Chief Justice Roger Taney, who headed the Court from 1836 to 1864. Taney wrote the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 case widely considered to be the Supreme Court’s most shameful decision.

Taney’s brazenly racist opinion said that a Black person whose ancestors were brought to the United States and sold into slavery could never be an American citizen. The majority also held that enslaved people were property, and because the Fifth Amendment forbids deprivation of property without due process, Congress could not ban slavery in the federal territories.
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/john-roberts-worst-chief-justice-of-all-time

[gab13by13]

1. Roberts

[rurallib]

2. The shadow docket has to be the most evil activity ever.

At least the way Roberts employs it.

[gfarber]

3. Roberts Court

Chief Justice Roberts, it's true,
Led a Court that's caused much ado.
With rulings so grand,
Protecting the land,
For powerful, not me and not you.

The unprincipled Roberts, quite sly,
Let the Court's ethics just die.
With rich pals in tow,
He watched justice go,
As the public just heaved a deep sigh.

[harumph]

15. that's quite good.

"...all the public could do is just cry."

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. I agree that Roberts is the worst chief justice in the history of the SCOTUS

Link to tweet

[speak easy]

5. Dredd Scott stoked the Civil War.

You can't do worse than that until we have a Civil War.

[Celerity]

6. We are already in a civil war. Have been since June 16, 2015. It just has not amped up into full kinetic action... yet.

[Trust_Reality]

10. Roberts and his MAGA comrades placed a convicted felon fraudster "president" above the law.

Traditional war not necessary.

[AllaN01Bear]

7. rich man's court and the just us leauge .

[dalton99a]

8. Lawless, cruel, corrupt, destructive, traitorous

[Mr.Bee]

9. This is what happens when billionaires take over

and they're not going to let go anytime soon.

[Kid Berwyn]

11. Co-Conspirator in Treason

Used to be hard for many to see, but now everybody’s on to John Roberts’ NAZI ass.

[republianmushroom]

12. Agree.

[Polybius]

13. I've only known two since I was 13

Rehnquist and Roberts.

[WarGamer]

14. mehhh

Comparing Chief Justice Roberts with Chief Justice Taney is to ignore the profound and uniquely destructive nature of Dred Scott. Some might strongly disagree with Roberts's jurisprudence, it simply does not compare to the historical stain and human cost of Taney's most infamous decision. It's a hyperbolic claim that lacks historical perspective.

[Passages]

16. Interesting, because even those close to him, conservatives, rank him very differently.

The Chief Justice is my friend. He's presiding over the end of the rule of law: Conservative jurist J. Michael Luttig
A stalwart of the conservative legal movement issues a stark warning for July 4. And I ask whether Trump is a departure from that movement or the culmination of its long crusade.
Anand Giridharadas, Ryan Lizza, and Judge J. Michael Luttig
Jul 03, 2025
https://the.ink/p/the-chief-justice-is-my-friend-hes