Chief Justice John Roberts has long warned of four threats to judicial independence: violence, intimidation, disinformation, and defiance of lawful orders. Now, a fifth threat has emerged—calculated infiltration of the judiciary to shape case outcomes.
After tobacco litigation yielded billions, trial lawyers turned to climate change as the next lucrative liability frontier. With the U.S. oil and gas industry generating roughly $1.3 trillion annually, the potential payoffs are enormous. More than 3,300 climate-related cases have been filed, and activists realized that the most effective way to win is to "educate" the judges who will decide them.
The Environmental Law Institute's Climate Judiciary Project runs seminars for judges, boasting that it builds "a network of judges and scientists advancing climate science education for the judiciary." Over 2,000 judges have participated since 2018, though names and testimonials were anonymized after conflict-of-interest concerns arose. At least two judges who oversaw climate cases were publicly linked to the program, which received funding from groups that also donate millions to Sher Edling, the law firm bringing many of these suits.
Another front opened with the Federal Judicial Center's Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, which added a climate science chapter for the first time. Critics, including the Wall Street Journal, called it "a sweeping brief intended to influence judges to think every harm from climate change is the result of fossil fuels." The chapter was removed after 27 Republican state attorneys general protested, and the National Academies of Sciences later pulled it following pressure from President Trump. Textual analysis suggests one author, Michael Burger, is both executive director of Columbia's Sabin Center and of counsel at Sher Edling—raising serious ethical questions.
Beyond external influence, some judges are undermining their own impartiality. In cases involving President Trump, judges have made personal statements that betray bias. U.S. District Judge William Young, for instance, quoted Shakespeare and his wife while calling Trump a tyrant. Such rhetoric erodes the appearance of fairness.
More troubling, some lower court judges have openly defied Supreme Court orders. Justice Neil Gorsuch responded sharply: "Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this court's decisions, but they are never free to defy them." This defiance, coupled with external manipulation, threatens the judiciary's legitimacy.
Public trust is the bedrock of the courts. When judges appear to have pre-judged cases or are swayed by advocacy groups, that trust crumbles. Roberts has urged that when the system is distorted, "we must as a nation publicize the risks and take all appropriate measures to stop them."
One remedy is to open judicial misconduct complaints to public oversight. Currently, federal complaints are reviewed only by judges themselves. Including lay members, as Arizona does, would add accountability. As former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould argues, "Let public accountability begin to reinforce private trust."
