This is less a question about the SCOTUS ruling itself, and more about how SCOTUS rulings are interpreted in applying the law.
In the SCOTUS ruling in Trump v. United States (23-939) on July 1st, 2024, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote "Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."
Obviously, this statement is intended to criticize the majority opinion, but in future, could it actually be used to justify the specific actions mentioned? Let's say a sitting President actually did have Seal Team 6 execute their political opponent. In a criminal trial for such an action, couldn't the lawyer say "Here, we have a Supreme Court ruling, and in that ruling, one of the Justices explicitly states that this ruling makes the President immune to criminal actions if that President has Seal Team 6 execute their political opponent."?
This seems absurd, but it isn't clear to me what the problem with this argument would be. A Supreme Court Justice has explicitly stated that this is an outcome of the ruling, so why couldn't that be used as a defense in this situation? Is there a section of the ruling that can't actually be used to set precedent? Was this statement written there? Or is there some other legal principle that would prevent a situation like this?