Justice Amy Coney Barrett is charting her own path on the bench
With piercing questions and a willingness to break ranks with fellow conservatives, the justice played a new role in her fourth term.

By Ann E. Marimow
July 4, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. EDT



Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Sonia Sotomayor, not pictured, participate in a discussion at the Civic Learning Week National Forum at George Washington University in March. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

The dissent was biting, accusing the Supreme Court’s conservative majority of “feeble” and “cherry-picked” arguments that inaccurately downplayed the Environmental Protection Agency’s role in protecting air quality. … Of course, all three liberal justices signed on.

But the writer was a conservative nominated by President Donald Trump: Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who charted a distinctive path during her breakout fourth term on the high court.

With piercing questions from the bench, and a willingness to break ranks with other Republican nominees in an era of conservative dominance on the court, Barrett played a new role this term — calling for a pragmatic, incremental approach to some cases in which her colleagues wanted to move more aggressively.

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Barrett, who at 52 is also the youngest justice, pushed back openly against other conservatives this term on the proper role of tradition and history in deciding cases. She did so most notably in her concurrence when the court upheld a federal gun law that takes guns from people who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders.

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By Ann Marimow
Ann Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2005, and has spent a decade writing about legal affairs and the federal judiciary. She previously covered state government and politics in California, New Hampshire and Maryland. Twitter https://x.com/amarimow