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Speaking at a judicial conference in Memphis, the justice expressed sympathy for the district-court judges whose rulings the Supreme Court has repeatedly paused.
Sept. 4, 2025, 5:29 p.m. ET
Two weeks ago, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joined a conservative colleague in harshly criticizing lower-court jurists for ignoring Supreme Court orders.
But on Thursday, speaking to a ballroom of federal judges from the lower courts, Justice Kavanaugh struck a more conciliatory note.
“It’s a difficult job that each of us has,” he said, as he opened remarks during a luncheon panel at the annual Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference in Memphis, “particularly the trial judges who operate alone.” (In the federal system, district courts are the trial courts.)
He called trial-court judges “the front lines of American justice” and thanked them for helping to “preserve and protect the Constitution and the rule of law of the United States.”
Justice Kavanaugh’s remarks came at a time of increased strain on the Supreme Court’s relationship with district court judges, who have often moved swiftly to block President Trump’s policies with sweeping preliminary orders, issued before a case has been heard in full. The Supreme Court in turn in June imposed new limits on the lower courts’ power to issue orders that affect the whole country, known as universal injunctions.
The justices have also intervened in more than a dozen individual cases in ways that at least temporarily lift blocks imposed by lower court judges that would have stopped Mr. Trump’s policies from being implemented while their legality is litigated.
