Justices Grapple With Waning Public Confidence in High Court

It’s difficult to know what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. could have meant when he said he didn’t “understand the connection between the opinions people disagree with and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court” when speaking to a conference of judges and lawyers put on by the Tenth Circuit Sept. 9.

He seemed to get it when he upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius and when he wrote a separate opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health to say he joined his conservative colleagues insofar has he was wiling ...