US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett collected $425,000 in royalties last year for an as-yet unannounced book, according to her newly released financial disclosure report.
The royalties more than doubled Barrett’s 2021 non-investment income, which included her $268,300 salary as an associate justice and $14,280 in teaching income from the University of Notre Dame Law School.
Politico reported in April that Barrett had secured a $2 million advance for a book about the duty of judges to keep their personal views out of their rulings. That sum would be the largest ever for a Supreme Court justice, topping the $1.5 million Justice Clarence Thomas received for his 2007 memoir and the $1.175 million advance Justice Sonia Sotomayor got for hers, published in 2013.
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Three other justices also reported book income in financial disclosure forms released Thursday. Justice Neil Gorsuch collected more than $250,000, Sotomayor received more than $110,000 and Justice Stephen Breyer got about $8,000.
Barrett, a Donald Trump appointee who took her seat just eight days before the 2020 presidential election, is a core member of the court’s conservative wing. The court is scheduled to rule in the coming weeks in cases that could eliminate the constitutional right to abortion, expand gun rights and curb the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to tackle climate change.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman didn’t immediate respond to a request for comment on the book. A spokesperson for Javelin Group LLC, the literary agency Barrett listed as the source of the income, didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment.
Source: Bloomberg: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/supreme-courts-barrett-got-425-000-in-book-royalties-last-year
