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Amy Coney Barrett rips Ketanji Brown Jackson over dissent in birthright citizenship case

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett stunned veteran bench watchers Friday with a blunt takedown of liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “extreme” dissent in the landmark birthright citizenship case in which the Supreme Court curtailed lower court use of universal injunctions.

“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” wrote Barrett, the court’s second-newest justice, in a jaw-dropping rebuke of her colleague, the newest justice.

“We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

 

 
Supreme Court Justices attending a joint session of Congress.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett took a rare swipe at her colleague in the majority opinion of the birthright citizenship case. Getty Images 

Barrett had authored the majority opinion in the case, the most consequential on the docket this term, which gave President Trump a major win by limiting the power of district judges to block his actions.

 

Amy Coney Barrett participating in a panel discussion.
“We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” Barrett wrote. The Washington Post via Getty Images
 
Ketanji Brown Jackson speaking at The Atlantic Festival.
The liberal justice is the newest member of the Supreme Court and her dissent drew the ire of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Getty Images for The Atlantic 
 

But Jackson also wrote a concurring dissent that featured a heavy fixation on the potential practical ramifications of the 6-3 decision rather than grounding her argument in legal theory.

“It is not difficult to predict how this all ends. Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more,” Jackson dramatically fretted at one point.

“Quite unlike a rule-of-kings governing system, in a rule of law regime, nearly ‘[e]very act of government may be challenged by an appeal to law,'” Jackson wrote elsewhere. “At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up in minutiae of the Government’s self-serving, finger-pointing arguments that it misses the plot.”

 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at Donald Trump's inauguration.
Jackson’s concurring dissent featured a heavy fixation on the potential practical ramifications of the 6-3 decision rather than legal theory. POOL/AFP via Getty Images 

 

Jackson even went so far as to dismiss the question of whether universal injunctions were provided for by the Judiciary Act of 1789 as “legalese” that “obscures a far more basic question of enormous legal and practical significance: May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?”

Barrett’s response in her opinion was almost mocking: “Because analyzing the governing statute involves boring ‘legalese,’ [Jackson] seeks to answer ‘a far more basic question of enormous practical significance: May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?’

“In other words, it is unnecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive. Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition: ‘[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law,'” Barrett continued. 

“That goes for judges too.”

 

Photo of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaking at a podium.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had implied the Supreme Court’s decision could end democracy. POOL/AFP via Getty Images

 

While Barrett, 53, gave lukewarm praise to Sotomayor, 71, for focusing her dissent on “conventional legal terrain, like the Judiciary Act of 1789 and our cases on equity,” she rounded on Jackson, 54, for adopting “a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.

“Waving away attention to the limits on judicial power as a ‘mind-numbingly technical query’ … she offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush,” Barrett wrote.

Meanwhile, Jackson opted not to conclude her opinion with the common phrases “I dissent” or “respectfully, I dissent” in an apparent sign of her fury at her colleagues’ ruling.

 

The Supreme Court building with people gathered outside.
Friday marked the last day of the Supreme Court’s term. Getty Images

 

 

“It’s not something that we see every day,” Republican Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told The Post about Barrett’s jabs, though Bird stressed that Barrett confined her critique to legal differences rather than personal attacks.

Other commentators were more scathing.

“Holy s—, this is about as brutal as I’ve ever seen SCOTUS be on one of their own,” attorney Kostas Moros wrote on X in response to Barrett’s “imperial Judiciary” quote. “Translated: ‘you are so stupid that you aren’t even worth responding to.'”

 

President Trump speaking at a press conference.
The Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump’s order on narrowing the definition of birthright citizenship. AFP via Getty Images 
 

“The FACT that six Justices were OK with signing onto an opinion where Justice Barrett took a personal shot at Justice Jackson is a VERY STRONG indication that Jackson has alienated her colleagues and there is a growing lack of respect for her work,” mused X user Shipwreckedcrew, whose profile describes them as a former federal prosecutor.

“Justices circulate Memos among with their legal views on certain cases in order to bring others around to their thinking. Given what she has written in her dissent, imagine the memos that Jackson must have sent around in this case.”

Three lower courts had stayed Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order narrowing the definition of birthright citizenship — which the 14th Amendment states confers automatic naturalization on all individuals born in the US — after concluding the executive action was likely unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump’s order — only the power courts had to enjoin it.

Author: Ryan King

Source: NY Post

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