WASHINGTON (AP) — While Sen. Approval HearingSupreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett uttered a memorable line explaining how she would approach the case: “This is not Amy’s law.”
Barrett is the Supreme Court Conservative majority They voted four years ago and have since voted to overturn abortion rights nationwide, eliminate affirmative action in college admissions and expand gun rights. Latest Terminology Her opinions at times reflected a willingness to distance herself from the conservative majority in a string of elections that included a sweeping blow to federal regulation and a key victory for former President Donald Trump.
Barrett wrote sharp dissents in cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and in a case involving downwind air pollution regulation. Appointed by Trump, she disagreed with the former president on several points. Historic immunity He also criticised part of the majority vote to keep him in the election.
“She’s firmly entrenched in conservative circles, but she’s not necessarily working in lockstep with other conservatives on the Supreme Court. She’s showing surprising signs of independence,” said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University.
In the Trump immunity case, Barrett joined the majority overall but dissented from a ruling that limited the evidence prosecutors can use in criminal cases against the president. “The Constitution does not require that jurors be concealed the circumstances surrounding conduct for which a president is held liable,” she wrote.
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The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, directed the lower courts to analyze whether Trump could be prosecuted for his alleged participation in a scheme to compile false electoral votes in battleground states, but Barrett wrote that there was “no plausible argument” to bar that part of the indictment.
“Her opinion is essentially a road map for how this case should proceed,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University.
“I think Judge Barrett is emerging as a moderate and principled voice on the Supreme Court,” he said, but added that her influence has been diminished by Roberts’s shift to the right.
The two sides are at odds over the Jan. 6 case, with Barrett in her dissent saying Roberts and the majority made a “textual shift” to arrive at an opinion that would make it harder for prosecutors to bring obstruction charges against rioters.
The court was unanimous in Trump on the ballotBut in her concurring opinion, Judge Barrett wrote that she believed the majority went further than necessary, and also criticized the Court’s liberal wing for speaking “heavy-handed.”
“She doesn’t always see things from the same perspective as her colleagues on the left or the right, and I think we’re going to see more of that uniqueness,” said Adam Feldman, a scholar and author of the blog Empirical SCOTUS.
She also Suspension of decision-making She opposed the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to combat air pollution, writing a dissenting opinion alongside the Supreme Court’s liberal justices that criticized the majority’s arguments as “unpersuasive,” saying they relied on “cherry-picking” data and downplayed the EPA’s role.
Roberts and Barrett joined in a limited order allowing emergency abortions to resume. Idaho WomenBarrett, who was a member of the Supreme Court majority, Struck Down In the 2022 case of Roe v. Wade, the court wrote a concurring opinion saying it was dismissing the case because the facts had changed since it originally decided to hear the case.
The order does not resolve the key questions at the heart of the case, and the issue could soon return to the Supreme Court, but likely after the November presidential election.
Although Barrett has occasionally stepped away from the conservative majority, she has more frequently joined it. Of the more than 50 cases before the Supreme Court this year, Barrett has joined the majority in 92% of cases, according to the Epirical SCOTUS ruling, making her the third-most likely to join a majority, after Justices Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh. Weakening Federal Regulatory Authoritywhich authorized more aggressive cleanups of homeless camps in the West and overturned a federal ban. Bump Stock, An accessory for the rapid-fire gun used in the nation’s worst mass shooting.
“I don’t know that it makes a huge difference in the direction of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is overwhelmingly conservative and she is part of that majority,” Murray said. “For the most part, she’s in line with that majority, but even when she’s not, it’s just on the edge.”
