Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett poses for her first portrait with the rest of her colleagues after signing a controversial $2million book deal
- Supreme Court on Friday released its first photo of Judge Amy Coney Barrett with her fellow justices
- Photo comes as legal scholars question her $2 billion book deal
- The $2 million advance could raise eyebrows
The Supreme Court on Friday released its first photo of Judge Amy Coney Barrett with her fellow justices as legal scholars question her $2 billion book deal, saying it is bad optics at a time of political peril for the court.
In the photo, Barrett stands in the back row wearing a red top and pearl necklace under her black robe. The new justices stand in the back while Chief Justice John Roberts is seated in the center.
Barrett is coming under fire for signing a book deal, coming about six months after she was sworn into office after her controversial nomination by President Donald Trump.
Members of the Supreme Court pose for a group photo. Seated from left: Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Standing from left: Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett
She is not the only judge on the high court to have gotten a book deal: Justices Stephen Breyer and Neil Gorsuch wrote on legal and civic issues while Justice Clarence Thomas received $1.5 million for his memoir and Justice Sonia Sotomayor got for $1.175 million hers.
Barrett’s book will be about how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule, publishing industry sources told Politico, calling the advance she received an ‘an eye-raising amount.’
Although federal law doesn’t preclude judges from being paid for writing books, such a large advance raises appearance issues, Charles Geyh, who specializes in judicial ethics as a professor at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law, told Bloomberg.
‘Judge Barrett may be confident that the book project will not detract from her focus on her judicial duties, and she may well be right,’ Geyh said. ‘But from the perspective of the average American who is grinding out a living at 40k a year, the optics of a judge — who is paid $250,000 in tax dollars to do the people’s business as a justice — moonlighting for $2 million on a book deal, are problematic.’
Advertisement
