My 2013 book, Unprecedented, offered this vignette about how Chief Justice Roberts fled the United States to a safe refuge after the decided NFIB v. Sebelius.
The day after the Court's term concluded, he left the country to teach at a summer program for law students in Malta, organized in part by the South Texas College of Law, where I teach. Before he departed, Roberts joked that he was retreating to an "impregnable island fortress." Students found Roberts was in very good spirits, no doubt enjoying the respite from the pressure.
I've often thought about this remark. Roberts has been under siege from the left and the right for the last quarter century. (I am responsible for much of that angst.) Whether or not this criticism affects Roberts's decisions, he does not respond in kind. He has given very few interviews, and when he speaks up, it is to defend the judiciary as a whole, and not him in particular. My one interaction with the Chief was pleasant enough.
