Supreme Court rules presidents immune for some official acts, remands case to lower court

On Jul. 1, 2024, the Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision on presidential immunity.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that a president 'may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers' and that the president has, 'at a minimum, a presumptive immunity from prosecution for official acts.'

The Court vacated the appellate ruling and remanded the D.C. case to District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine, on the record, which alleged acts are official and which are unofficial.

The Court did not dismiss charges or parts of Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment. It ordered further factfinding and legal parsing by the lower court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the principal dissent and warned that the majority's framework could leave some official abuses harder to prosecute; she used hypotheticals, including an assassination example, as a warning within her dissent.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined most of the majority but did not join the portion that would broadly exclude official-act evidence from trials; she argued for narrower admissibility rules.