The US Supreme Court is seen through a camera viewfinder on February 20.
The Supreme Court has long presented itself as a uniform group of justices, all sheathed in long black robes. Its rulings are the product of a collective majority. And when justices refer to a precedent, they speak reverently of “The Court.”
But “The Nine” more often resemble solo operators these days. Seven have written or are about to publish books telling of their own lives or approach to the law. Several have been on the stump in recent weeks, touting their individual message and views, sometimes seeing it backfire.
This is not business as usual. There was a time when the late Justice Antonin Scalia (who served from 1986 to 2016), stood out for his confrontational speeches and prolific extracurricular writings. As he barnstormed campuses, building support for his originalist approach, he created an identity for himself beyond the bench.
Today, multiple justices appear to be working on their brands. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch have undertaken recent book-related tours. Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh have books that will be published in upcoming months.
The mix of today’s polarization, these particular justices, and the ongoing pressure of the Trump administration cases has produced a bench that is marked by discord that the justices are making public. This trend reflects more than the usual rivalrous complaints of recent years: It’s a new and sustained effort by most to foster an individual persona and advance a distinct view of the law.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Associate Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson listen as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th president of the United States. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS
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“I think it exacerbates some of the interpersonal conflicts among the justices,” said University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone.
“It’s valuable for the court and the justices to be seen just as justices, not as people who go out there and make personal statements about politics or even the law,” Stone added.
Last week, Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving conservative on the current bench, laid out his constitutional philosophy in a lengthy manifesto at the University of Texas, Austin, carried live on C-SPAN and excerpted in The Wall Street Journal.
Thomas declared that America’s founding principles have been undermined through the era of modern liberalism and progressivism that took hold in the early 1900s. “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence,” Thomas said, “and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from the government.”
“You will not be surprised to learn that the progressives had a great deal of contempt for us, the American people,” Thomas added.
Jackson and Sotomayor have also used recent appearances to expound on issues, mainly current cases, and to malign the opposition.
At law schools this month, both criticized the conservative majority’s expediting of emergency appeals from the Trump administration. They separately suggested the right-wing majority was out of touch with Americans. Jackson said that hastily issued rulings on the court’s emergency docket, which she characterized as “scratch-paper musings,” can produce “real world harms.”
Two weeks earlier, Sotomayor targeted Kavanaugh for downplaying the effects of an emergency-docket decision that favored a Trump administration policy of stopping suspected migrants in the Los Angeles area.
“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,” she said, according to a Bloomberg Law report. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour,” she said, according to the Bloomberg report. Sotomayor later apologized to Kavanaugh, acknowledging, “I made remarks that were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”
Thomas, Sotomayor and Jackson have all published autobiographies – Jackson two years after her 2022 appointment.
Gorsuch has largely used his extracurricular writings to elaborate on his legal arguments, including a 2024 book that further expounded on his view that government excessively regulates Americans, threatening their lives and liberty.
Justice Samuel Alito sits during a group photo of the justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on April 23, 2021.
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University of Pennsylvania law professor Jean Galbraith considers the justices’ pattern a product of the times and one that has both upsides and downsides.
Of books with an autobiographical theme, she said, “It used to be that memoirs generally were written after retirement. Maybe there was even a view that it was tacky to do it earlier. Our social norms have shifted. Mid-career memoirs are becoming commonplace.” And she noted that books from justices who broke color and gender lines can be especially inspiring for the public.
Yet the more the justices bring a focus on their individual personalities, whether through writings or speeches, the less likely the public may appreciate the concept of a government of laws rather than people, Galbraith added.
Another factor may be looming in the trend: the current bench is deeply polarized. It is largely controlled by a six-justice Republican-appointed conservative majority, with the three Democratic-appointed liberals often in dissent. Yet factions have emerged on each side of the divide, and individual justices seem perpetually frustrated.
Referring to these highly partisan times, Galbraith said, “There is some real value in trying to share with the nation what’s going on, in ways that people will hear and pay attention to, while there’s also a lot of value to the justices keeping the personal dynamics out of it.”
Rare to write books while on bench
In earlier decades, it was a rare sitting justice who took on a book project. Such exceptions were William O. Douglas, with his interest in the environment and conservation, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist, with his pursuit of court history. Douglas served 1939 to 1975, and Rehnquist, 1972 to 2005 (the early years, until 1986, as an associate justice).
The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Thomas penned autobiographies, but only after they were in their second decade on the bench. (O’Connor was the first woman justice, Thomas the second African American.) Newer justices have been signing book contracts at a quicker pace, within months of appointment. And it is likely that never in more than two centuries have so many sitting justices been simultaneously authoring books.
Only Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan have not written books.
The justices are limited in how much money they can make on the side, for example, through lectures and teaching. But book royalties are not subject to such limits, and their mandatory financial disclosure forms show that some have made additional millions of dollars.
The annual salary for associate justices is now $306,600, and for the chief justice, $320,700.
Everyone wants to be heard
Money no doubt can be a motivation. But a larger drive to be heard has emerged. The desire to reinforce their own views and personalities echoes the contemporary proliferation of separate writings on individual cases.
There has been a significant increase in written concurring opinions over the past quarter century. A recent demonstration was the 164-pages of opinions produced in the dispute over Trump’s tariffs on foreign goods. Roberts wrote for the majority, and Kavanaugh wrote for the dissent. But then five other justices penned separate statements on the dueling sides.
“I felt very left out,” quipped Alito, one of the two justices who did not write separately.
That was a joke. But there may be something to it. The justices are not immune to cultural forces or the fear of missing out. They keep an eye on what their colleagues do, off-bench and on.
The Scalia effect on the law is widely acknowledged. He spread the principles of originalism and textualism, now adopted by most justices.
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3 min readSimilarly, his denigrating, take-no-prisoners style doesn’t seem so singular these days. Justice Jackson has demonstrated a similar caustic rhetoric.
When Scalia died in 2016, University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson observed that the justice left a legacy that included the role of “trash talker” and a reimagined model of a justice.
“He fundamentally rewrote the job description of ‘Supreme Court Justice,’” Levinson said, “by directing a great deal of his attention outside the court.”
Today, he would be just one of many taking the show on the road.
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