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THE SCOTUS RULING THAT ENABLED THE KILLING OF RENEE GOOD  
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Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern
January 9, 2026
Slate
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_ Events keep demonstrating Donald Trump’s absolutely limitless
claims of power to do anything. So nobody should be surprised at the
resounding claim that his agents can kill people in cold blood, and
they’re immune from any scrutiny. _

,

 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross
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shot and killed Renee Nicole Good while she attempted to drive away
from an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Videos show Ross using unjustified force
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against Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet, when he appeared to be in
no imminent danger
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Trump administration immediately defended the murder
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defaming Good as a “domestic terrorist,” asserting absolute
immunity
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for Ross, and obstructing
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a state investigation into the incident. This defense came on the
heels of the administration’s declaration that Congress could not
limit
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its military actions in Venezuela, claiming that the president has
inherent constitutional power
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to invade foreign countries.

On this week’s episode of Amicus
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Joseph Stern discuss how Good’s killing was not an aberration, but
the logical end point of the administration’s theory of power—one
fortified by the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision
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A preview of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed
for clarity.

DAHLIA LITHWICK: I WANT TO LOOK BACK AT THE WAYS IN WHICH THE EVENTS
OF THE LAST WEEK, AGGREGATED ACROSS THE EVENTS OF THE LAST COUPLE OF
MONTHS, KEEP DEMONSTRATING DONALD TRUMP’S ABSOLUTELY LIMITLESS
CLAIMS OF POWER TO DO ANYTHING—TO DETERMINE INTERNATIONAL LAW, TO
DETERMINE DOMESTIC LAW, TO DECIDE WHEN THERE’S AN EMERGENCY. THERE
ARE NO BOUNDARIES. THAT’S WHY THE TWO BOOKENDED EVENTS IN VENEZUELA
AND IN MINNESOTA SIT SO HEAVILY ON US: WE ARE HEARING J.D. VANCE AND
STEPHEN MILLER AND KRISTI NOEM AND THE PRESIDENT ALL CLAIM, OVER AND
OVER AGAIN, SOME VERSION OF: _THE PRESIDENT CAN DEPORT, BOMB, ARREST
ANYONE HE WANTS. HE CAN INVADE SOVEREIGN NATIONS. HE CAN TAKE OVER
GREENLAND. HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS. _SO NOBODY SHOULD BE SURPRISED
AT THE RESOUNDING CLAIM THAT HIS AGENTS CAN KILL PEOPLE IN COLD BLOOD,
AND THEY’RE IMMUNE FROM ANY SCRUTINY. 

I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE CONVERSATION YOU AND I HAD AFTER _TRUMP V.
UNITED STATES_
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THE SUPREME COURT WROTE IN THESE VERY BLOODLESS TERMS ABOUT THE
IMMUNITY CONFERRED UPON THE PRESIDENT WITHIN THE OUTER AND INNER
PERIMETERS OF HIS “OFFICIAL ACTS.” AND I WANT TO LAYER THAT
AGAINST THE IMAGE OF A FAMILY CAR SPLATTERED IN THE BLOOD OF A MOTHER
GUNNED DOWN FOR NO GOOD REASON, INCLUDING THE REASONS BEING PROFFERED
IN DEFENSE OF THE MURDER. IN SOME WAYS, I FEEL LIKE THIS IS THE ANSWER
TO THE QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN PLAGUING US SINCE WE STARTED TALKING
ABOUT THE IMMUNITY CASE, WHICH IS: WHAT DOES THE LAW EVEN MEAN WHEN
ONE MAN IS GIVEN IMMUNITY THAT HE CAN EXTEND TO HIS CRONIES AND DEPLOY
AGAINST HIS ENEMIES? WHEN ALL OF THIS GETS MADE UP ON THE FLY AS TRUMP
SEES FIT, AND WITHOUT LIMITS—BEYOND, AS HE TOLD
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THE NEW YORK TIMES THIS WEEK, THE OUTER BOUNDARIES OF HIS CONSCIENCE?
HOW DO WE EVEN THINK ABOUT THIS AS A MATTER OF “LAW”?

MARK JOSEPH STERN: I think when people in our profession see horrible
murders like this—then watch the president claim it was justified
because the victim was a “domestic terrorist”—there’s a
temptation to process it through legal reasoning. To say: _No,
that’s not right. _But you miss the point if you fail to look at the
bigger picture. Because the lawyers crafting some of these statements
for Trump know that what they’re saying is false. They know that
Minnesota has jurisdiction to investigate this crime. They’re just
lying about it. And at a certain point, it does seem foolish to keep
arguing the legal logic when it is irrelevant to the people in charge.

The first and clearest sign we got about this came in March, when the
Justice Department said that Judge James Boasberg’s investigation
into unlawful deportation must yield to
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“the mandate of the electorate.” As if Trump’s election bestowed
upon him a kind of sovereign power, not just as head of the executive
branch, but as the personification of the American people’s will. So
when anybody tries to stand in his way, they have to be pushed aside.
Just this past week, congressional Republicans escalated their effort
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to impeach Judge Boasberg and remove him from the bench because he
dared to resist the “mandate of the electorate” and say,
_Actually, laws still matter_.

We can hold both truths in our heads: Laws matter, but not to this
administration, so there will always be a limit to the legal arguments
made against it. We have to insist that in this country nobody can
ever claim that they have some kind of freestanding authority to
deport, to bomb, to murder because they were elected by the American
people. Yes, Trump won the election; that does not mean that he can
send his goon squads in with masks and assault rifles and start
shooting moms and motorists and anybody perceived as a threat.

Unfortunately, that is how the Supreme Court seemed to imply that law
might work in its immunity decision when it stripped presidential
conduct of factual context and insulated “official acts” from real
accountability. And I believe that’s the key source of this
administration’s extralegal logic. I remember Justice Neil Gorsuch
saying
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during those arguments, that he didn’t much care about the details
of Trump trying to steal the 2020 election, because the court was
writing “a rule for the ages.” And how that rule for the ages
cashes out is Renee Good getting shot in the head, her blood
splattered over her kid’s stuffed animals in the family car.
That’s how the “rule for the ages” ends up transforming our
country into a place where Hispanic people have to carry
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proof of citizenship and any protester can be executed for no reason.

All of this flows from the president’s own claim to represent the
ultimate will of the people, to have total immunity for himself and
his agents for any kind of criminal wrongdoing. When Trump started
bombing the boats, we should have known that it would very quickly
lead to his agents assassinating American citizens in the streets. And
there has to be a groundswell of opposition to this conception of the
law, because if you squint, you can see how they’re trying to call
this “law.” It’s the “law” as whatever the president claims
is necessary and correct, as he told the New York Times—whatever he
believes the country needs, that becomes legal. We have to refuse to
buy into the shared reality that the White House is demanding we all
buy into.

I’VE BEEN THINKING A LOT ABOUT ONE OF THE TROPES WE SAW AFTER THE
MINNESOTA SHOOTING—A LOT OF PEOPLE SEEMED TO SAY: WAIT, SHE’S A
MOM, JUST LIKE ME! SHE WAS AT SCHOOL DROP-OFF, JUST LIKE ME! AND NOT
THAT LONG AGO, AN APPEALS COURT JUDGE TALKING ABOUT
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THE PRESIDENT RENDITIONING PEOPLE TO CECOT SAID: _IF THEY DESIGNATE
ANYBODY AS A GANG MEMBER, THEY CAN DO IT TO ME._ FOR A LOT OF US, THAT
SEEMED LIKE A STRETCH, RIGHT? YOU’RE A FEDERAL APPEALS COURT JUDGE.
NOBODY’S GOING TO RENDITION YOU TO CECOT.

BUT THE CATEGORY ERROR YOU’RE IDENTIFYING ISN’T “THE VICTIM
REMINDS ME OF ME THIS TIME AND THEREFORE I’M HORRIFIED.” IT’S
THAT ONCE YOU GIVE THE PRESIDENT THE RIGHT TO DECLARE THAT PEOPLE ARE
GANG MEMBERS OR DRUG RUNNERS OR DOMESTIC TERRORISTS—ONCE YOU HAVE
THE POWER TO DESIGNATE ENTIRE CLASSES OF PEOPLE, LIKE SOMALIS AND
HAITIANS, AS ENEMIES OF THE STATE—IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. I REALLY
WANT TO LIFT THAT UP AS A WAY TO THINK ABOUT WHY WE ARE HORRIFIED AT
WHAT HAPPENED TO RENEE GOOD. IT’S NOT SIMPLY BECAUSE HER LIFE IS
FAMILIAR TO US. IT’S BECAUSE THE TAKING OF HER LIFE HAS BEEN BATTED
AWAY ON THE GROUNDS THAT SHE IS OF A CLASS OF PEOPLE THAT’S SUBHUMAN
AND THUS NOT DESERVING OF THE PROTECTIONS OF THE LAW. AND WE ALL NEED
TO REALIZE THAT IF THE PRESIDENT CAN DO THIS TO HER, THE PRESIDENT CAN
DO IT TO ME.I guess what makes me despair is that, of course,
everything you just said is correct, but it’s a lesson that we have
to keep learning over and over again somehow. People always trot out
Martin Niemöller’s poem
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about the Holocaust—first they came for them, and I didn’t speak
out; then they came for me. I fear that we’ve reached the end of the
usefulness of that poem, because what we’ve seen is that people have
endless excuses for why it _won’t_ be them. They think we live in a
different time. We’ve learned it. We can move on.

But we haven’t learned it. Because there are still many people
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on the right
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it seems, who defend the execution of Renee Good, even if they could
relate to her on some level. There are a lot of moms out there who are
MAGA, who voted for Donald Trump, and who evidently support this
murder. So even now, they can’t make the connection
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that if it could happen to that woman, it could happen to me. I
don’t know how we fix that. I really don’t have an answer. Many
people just do not have the appropriate fear that we have handed the
power over to this president to kill almost anyone he wants.

_DAHLIA LITHWICK_ [[link removed]]_ writes
about the courts and the law for Slate and hosts the podcast __Amicus_
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_MARK JOSEPH STERN_ [[link removed]]_ is a
Slate senior writer._

_Slate_ [[link removed]]_ is an online magazine of news, politics,
technology, and culture. It combines humor and insight in thoughtful
analyses of current events and political news.__ Choose the
newsletters you want_ [[link removed]]_ to get the
Slatest._

 

* SCOTUS
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* Renee Nicole Good
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* Donald Trump
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