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Human Rights

Dershowitz: 'This is no longer the Roberts Court. It's now the Trump Court'

Trump appointed three associate justices to the court while in office.

June 25, 2022 12:12am

Updated: June 25, 2022 11:33am

Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz declared Friday that the Supreme Court's decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion precedent was a clear sign of former President Donald Trump's influence on the judicial branch.

"Well, this is no longer the Roberts Court," he said, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts. "It's now the Trump court," he said on Friday's Just the News, Not Noise television show. Trump, while president, appointed Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to bench.

The high court on Friday released its ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson abortion case which fully overturned both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 decision affirming abortion rights, thereby returning the power to regulate the practice to the states. All of the Trump-appointed justices voted with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in the majority ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts issued a concurring opinion.

The Roe precedent legalized abortion nationwide in 1972 after the court determined the procedure to be a constitutional right under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees a right to privacy.

Dershowitz went on to assert how Friday's ruling indicates the current court holds a fundamentally different interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy, saying "this is the beginning of a new era of the right of privacy. And we have to see how it evolves. Over time."

The Harvard professor then reminded viewers that the court has previously held left-wing biases and warned that those frustrated with its shift to the right should not pursue violence or attempt to dismantle the institution.

"We've been through this before, the New Deal was a new era," he said. "The Warren Court was a new era, both of those eras helped liberals and hurt conservatives.

”This time the shoe was on the other foot, and we who are liberal have to understand that we can't engage in violence, we can't start tacking it forward and destroying the institution,” he added. “We have to work within the law and within the first year."