Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett sold a book advance for $2 million, according a Monday report.
Barrett’s advance is the largest for a Supreme Court justice since Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O’Connor wrote books, according to Politico. The book will discuss how judges should not bring their personal feelings and opinions into the courtroom, publishing sources told the outlet.
NEW: Justice Amy Coney Barrett has sold a book — garnering a $2 million advance for a tome about how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule, three publishing industry sources told me. https://t.co/UqTcjiZJWc
— Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) April 19, 2021
Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith received extensive attention from Senate Democrats during her confirmation hearings, first for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and then for the Supreme Court. “The conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern,” Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Barrett in 2017. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Disgusting Attacks On Her Faith’: Sasse Condemns ‘Anti-Catholic Bigotry’ Against Amy Coney Barrett)
In response to religious concerns, Coney Barrett told senators that “courts should not try [to make] policy decisions and value judgments.”
When when she was a law clerk for Judge Laurence Silberman in 1998, Coney Barrett and Notre Dame Law Professor John Garvey wrote a Marquette Law Review article about how Catholic judges should conduct themselves when ruling on legal issues that clash with their faiths.
Coney Barrett and Garvey argue that Catholic judges “cannot-nor should they try to-align our legal system with the Church’s moral teaching whenever the two diverge.” They argue these judges should seriously consider recusing themselves from death penalty cases, although they are not required to.