On Friday (July 10, 2026), a group of retired judges will step off a tour bus in a ritzy Michigan suburb after three days of barnstorming through corn fields, cities and coal towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania. They carry with them a message.
In courthouses and public squares, they have marked the nation’s 250th anniversary with a dire warning: The rule of law in America is in grave danger. They will deliver a similar message at a library in Grosse Pointe just outside Detroit — the last stop on an extraordinary tour to defend judicial independence and bolster trust in courts.
The retired judges said Americans’ confidence in the court system and democracy has dipped in recent years. They pointed to a more polarized country, and President Donald Trump’s repeated criticism of the fairness of the judicial system, with some judges on the tour saying in phone interviews this week that the United States was at a precipice.
“Looking back in history, we have teetered,” former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly said. “This is a moment where we can decide to re-instil those beliefs that we are a country of laws and not of men.”
The four-day tour through the Rust Belt is a sharp departure for a typically reserved and insular branch of government. Federal judges, in particular, largely limit their comments to the courtroom and written decisions, focussing on the facts of individual cases.
But that restraint is loosening amid a barrage of attacks by Mr. Trump and other White House officials, the administration’s rampant defiance of U.S. district court orders and its expansive view of executive power. Mr. Trump has called a district judge who ruled against one of his immigration moves ‘crooked’ and suggested with no evidence that Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs were motivated by foreign interests.
More federal judges have recently begun talking about receiving death threats and profane messages, though they have not blamed Mr. Trump or any other officials. Some have blasted administration policies in sharply worded opinions that strayed beyond the legal dispute before them. Even U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has weighed in.
In an appearance in March, Mr. Roberts said personal criticism of federal judges was dangerous and had to stop. The rare rebuke from the head of the nation’s top court came two days after Mr. Trump’s remark about a ‘crooked’ judge, though Mr. Roberts didn’t mention Mr. Trump or anyone else by name.
The U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats against federal judges in the government fiscal year that ended in September, up from 509 the year before.
“I don’t want to say we have moved into an era of lawlessness, but it sometimes feels that way,” said former U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts, who was set to join the bus tour in Michigan.
Timothy Lewis, another former federal judge on the tour, said his concerns about the politicisation of the judicial branch reached a tipping point a decade ago, when Senate Republicans thwarted President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Today, the rule of law is facing an ‘existential threat’ from an ongoing breakdown of norms, according to Lewis, who spent seven years on the third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “I have fundamental concerns,” he said, “about where we are headed as a nation.”
The tour started on Tuesday (July 7, 2026), in the western Pennsylvania town of Greensburg — once the hub of a thriving coal industry that now lures visitors from nearby Pittsburgh for highland recreation and a historic downtown.
Judges mingled with customers at a coffee shop before speaking at the domed, ornate Westmoreland County Courthouse. Then it was off to Washington, also in western Pennsylvania. The town of 13,000 people, where about 15% of the population is Black, was a key stop on the Underground Railroad and a regional base for the Civil Rights Movement.
From there, the bus headed west for events Wednesday (July 8, 2026), in Columbus, Ohio, and the city of Wooster in Amish country. The judges stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant on the way. They spent Thursday (July 9, 2026), in Cleveland before circling Lake Erie north to Michigan.
The two groups that planned the tour— dubbed ‘Justice in Motion’— say they were inspired by a similar campaign in Poland in 2021 after that country’s governing party took control of key judicial institutions.
Independent Polish judges visited scores of towns to promote the rule of law and teach voters about the country’s constitution. The U.S. tour also aims to educate people.
Maureen O’Connor, a former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, said judges risk ceding the narrative about their roles and motives to ‘voices of misinformation’ if they don’t speak up.
A letter she received years ago, and still keeps, reminds her of that danger. The writer accused Ms. O’Connor, a Republican, of betraying her party when she repeatedly struck down Republican-drawn legislative maps as illegal gerrymanders. “There was just a basic misunderstanding of what my role was as a judge,” Ms. O’Connor said.
Ms. O’Connor is among roughly 30 judges, including two former federal judges and a current federal judge, who will participate in the tour. One of the federal judges was nominated by a Democrat, the other two by Republicans. The state judges, some of whom are also still on the Bench, represent both parties.
They have been joined by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, former Ohio attorneys general and a few lawyers. The event was put together by the Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic, nonpartisan advocacy groups.
Organisers say they chose stops that would get the judges in front of as many people as possible to build connections and trust. The judges have embraced that mission.
“The lifeblood of the judiciary is public confidence,” Mr. Donnelly, the former Ohio Supreme Court justice, said. “If you lose that, it’s very difficult to get it back.”
Published – July 10, 2026 01:15 pm IST
