Justice Stephen G. Breyer on Saturday defended a judge accused of defying a Supreme Court ruling, saying in an interview that he knew the judge to be scrupulously honest and respectful of higher courts.

Justice Breyer, who retired from the court in 2022, has avoided criticism of his former colleagues. He declined on Saturday to directly address Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s concurring opinion last month accusing Judge William G. Young, of the Federal District Court in Boston, of ignoring a binding precedent.

But that opinion plainly prompted Justice Breyer’s decision to step forward with rare public comments in praise of Judge Young as model jurist whose rulings he had often reviewed during his 14 years as an appeals court judge in Boston.

“I never saw an instance where he would deliberately defy a controlling opinion or legal statement from our court or from the Supreme Court,” Justice Breyer said. “I never even had an instinct or a guess or a hunch or anything that he was doing anything like that deliberately.”

Justice Breyer’s comments were the latest indication of growing tensions within the judiciary, as courts grapple with the flood of lawsuits prompted by the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to remake the government, and as trial judges struggle to interpret the Supreme Court’s emergency orders.

Justice Gorsuch had harsh words for Judge Young, accusing him of serious misconduct in a ruling restoring grants from the National Institutes of Health that the Trump administration had sought to cancel.