U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett spoke at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Southern Methodist University’s campus Monday evening. The conversation centered on her book Listening to the Law.
The center’s president and chief executive officer, Shilo Brooks, moderated the conversation with Justice Barrett. The conversation started with her time at Rhodes College, where she studied English.
After earning her bachelor’s degree, she attended Notre Dame Law School and earned her JD in 1997. The New Orleans-native clerked for U.S. Judge Laurence Silberman and then for Justice Antonin Scalia.
“He didn’t want you to just be a yes man, or in my case, a yes woman. I was the only woman in chambers. He wanted you to push back, and he wanted you to disagree with him,” Justice Barrett said about Justice Scalia. “It was a way for me as a young lawyer to really hone my analytical skills.”
She joined the faculty at Notre Dame Law School in 2002 and continued to teach there when she joined the Seventh Circuit’s bench in 2017 after her appointment by President Donald Trump.
In 2020, President Trump nominated Justice Barrett to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the nation’s highest court. She was confirmed by the Senate with a 52-48 vote.
She said she didn’t have a lot of time to practice for the Senate confirmation hearings due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
“I don’t know if that was good or bad. … I hadn’t had a whole lot of time to practice, but it did mean that the whole process was just abbreviated and stressful,” Justice Barrett said.
Brooks noted how Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed 99-0. And Justice Barrett added that Justice Scalia was confirmed 98-0. Brooks asked her why there was such a difference in the votes now.
“I just think we’re living in a very politically divided time, and I think it’s harder for people to come together,” Justice Barrett said. “One thing that I’ve experienced in Washington is that some senators who voted against me or opposed my nomination, and even who were pretty aggressive with me in the hearing room, when you see them outside of that context, couldn’t be nicer, couldn’t be warmer. … I just think that publicly, maybe it’s just hard to show support from someone who is perceived to be on, you know, from the other side.”
All Democrats and one Republican voted against her nomination.
Justice Barrett is open about her Catholic faith and believes the death penalty is immoral, but said her job is to interpret the law. She gave the example that is in her book of the Boston Marathon bomber, who had been sentenced to death.
In March 2022, the Supreme Court sided 6-3 with the government to reinstate the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“You could say, well, there’s some decent arguments going his way. So since I think that the death penalty ought not be used, then maybe I should just try to shade it and go with the arguments that I think are less good arguments but lead to a better result,” Justice Barrett said. “I personally think that would be — and I’m pretty firm about this — that it would be a dereliction of my duty, because, again, I’m supposed to faithfully interpret the law as I can best judge that law to be. And in that case, I thought that the law permitted the death penalty to be imposed on Tsarnaev.”
Brooks asked Justice Barrett what Thanksgiving Days are like at her house with seven children and what kind of questions she gets about her work. She said sometimes they will ask about oral arguments, but don’t always follow up about the outcome.
“I try to make my life as normal as possible when I am not at the workplace,” Justice Barrett said.
She said collegiality is a decision, and on the court, they have several traditions to foster that. She said they shake hands before going on the bench, they have lunch together every day of argument and conference, and they’re not allowed to talk about cases during lunch.
“That forces us to let that go and to just get to know one another as people,” Justice Barrett said.
The conversation closed with Justice Barrett talking about how she has a portrait of Abigail Adams in her chambers.
“I thought like, well, I’d like to have a founding member of the founding generation up in my office, and all of the people who drafted the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention and who participated in the state ratifying conventions were men, and Abigail Adams is kind of the closest to a founding mother that I think we have,” Justice Barrett said.
She said Adams’ letters to her husband John reveal her intense interest in the new nation.
“She had a large family, and she managed the farm and their finances and raising their children while still remaining engaged in what was happening in the country,” Justice Barrett said.
The portrait she has up is from the Massachusetts Historical Society when Abigail Adams was young.
“It shows just the optimism that she had and the very beginning kind of looking out at a life that would be to come,” Justice Barrett said.