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But what kind of judge is Amy Coney Barrett . That is what we are here to explore. Excellent panelists i invite to join me now on the screen while i give a brief introduction. Professorperson is jonathan adler, director of the center for environmental law at Case Western University school of law. Environmental, administrative, and constitutional law. A graduate of the george mason law school, now the scalia law school, he clerked on. D. C. Clerked on the circuit. Prior to joining case western, jonathan worked at the case Enterprise Institute where he was the director of the environmental studies program. Since joining case western coming he has received the distinguished teacher of the year award, as well as the federalist societys award for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and commitment to students. Jonathan is also the senior fellow at the Environmental Research center in bozeman, montana and has testified numerous times in front of congress, is a frequent commentator his articles have , appeared in many newspapers and scholarly journals. And he is also the author and editor of several books, and is contributor to the popular journal conspiracy. , after jonathan, we will hear from Professor John baker, a Professor Emeritus of law from Louisiana State University School of law. He is currently a visiting professor at georgetown law school, and has been a visiting professor and guest lecturer at many other universities, both here and abroad. In fact, he is currently teaching a class on the u. S. Constitution via zoom at peking University School of transnational law. John earned a phd in political thought from the university of london. After law school, he clerked for a Federal District court judge, and he was an assistant District Attorney in new orleans for several years. He has written and edited several books. He has argued two cases in front of the Supreme Court, and for many years he cotaught classes , with Justice Scalia and is carrying on that tradition by teaching or having taught a Supreme Court seminar in china , no less with Justice Samuel , alito. As an interesting side note, he has known judge barrett for many years. John will talk about judge barretts views on criminal law and separation of powers. Finally, will hear from ilia shapiro. Director of constitutional studies at the cato institute. A graduate of the university of chicago law school, he clerked on the fifth circuit for judge jolley. Before joining cato, he was in private practice at toptier law firms and was a special assistant to the Multinational Force in iraq on rule of law issues. He has been an adjunct law professor at George Washington university and the university of mississippi. He is a frequent commentator and his articles have appeared in newspapers and scholarly journals throughout the country. And in a remarkable bit of timing he is the author of a new , book entitled, supreme disorder judicial nominations and the politics of americas highest court. Jonathan, the floor is yours. Jonathan great, thank you, john. It is a pleasure to be here. Happy to talk about judge barretts record. Just some initial background, judge Amy Coney Barrett has been on the seventh circuit for just under three years. She was confirmed in november of 2017. She has participated in over 600 cases and authored over 100 decisions, majorities, concurrences, and dissents. Her record has been characterized as conservative, but it is worth noting that in this threeyear period, despite being on 600 cases, she has not dissented all that often. There are not that many dissents from her opinions. She disagrees most often with judge david hamilton, an obama nominee. But they have only split i believe on 10 cases and then after judge hamilton, she is most often divided with judge wood and easterbrook, clinton and reagan judges respectively. One reason for that is she has a very nononsense approach to judicial decisionmaking. Her opinions are thorough and careful, certainly in the area of Administrative Law where i am focused, it is nice to see a judge that doesnt take shortcuts, that doesnt disguise the complexity that often exists in cases. At the same time, there is very little editorializing, very little extraneous interjection of her own views or opinions. She does what is necessary to answer the question before the court. If a question is particularly difficult or the precedents are meddlesome, she works through case law to reach a result. It is interesting to talk about her Administrative Law opinions because after the gorsuch and cavanaugh nominations, we are used to Administrative Law being a major issue. Judge gorsuch had written some very aggressive and prominent Administrative Law decisions as a judge on the u. S. Court of appeals for the 10th circuit, and judge kavanaugh obviously as a judge on the deceased, he was on the d. C. Circuit, he was doing administered of law all the time. Their interest and expertise in Administrative Law is part of the reason they were nominated to the Supreme Court. Judge barrett has heard a ton of civil rights cases, section 93 cases, sentencing cases. Administrative law cases do not come up that often. There are not that many challenges to federal Agency Actions that have ended up in front of panel she has been on. Most of the Administrative Law cases she has had have dealt with immigration, and the pattern you see is a very careful effort to scrutinize the actions that the Relevant Agency took in this case, with the immigration board of appeals and in some case Immigration Judges and to render a judgment based on the relevant case law and statutes require. She has at times upheld orders of removal and overturned orders of removal. You dont see her opinions as a judge who has a particular agenda in these areas other than to do what the law requires. I want to highlight a few cases and then turn it over to my panelists, copanelists, because i want to leave a lot of time for discussion. Perhaps the most significant Immigration Law case she has dealt with, and opinion of hers is actually a dissent she wrote in a case called cook county versus wolf. This is one of multiple challenges to the public charge rule, and to oversimplify what is really a complicated regulation here, basically this is a rule that makes it more difficult for nonimmigrant visa holders to get a change in their visa status or to get entry to the country based on a projection that they may be a public charge, that they may become dependent upon public assistance. This is something that the relevant immigration metrics provide for an what the Trump Administration did was promulgate a new regular should regulation, offering a new interpretation of what the phrase public charge means. This has been challenged in multiple courts across the country. She wrote a careful dissent explaining why the meaning of the word, the phrase public charge has some ambiguity. Precisely what degree of dependency renders public charge is a question that congress did not fully answer, and that the answer to that question that the department of Homeland Security provided was in that whelm of that round of ambiguity and is likely to survive a legal challenge. It is interesting she reached step two of chevron, some Supreme Court justices are unlikely to find that a statute is ambiguous. She identified what the outer boundaries of this phrase public charge likely are, and now there is wiggle room left in that phrase that the Trump Administration properly exploited. I think that opinion is quite notable. If you want to see her method at work, i recommend looking at that. One issue that comes up a lot in Administrative Law is due process. She is an important majority opinion in a case, one of dozens upon dozens of challenges to University Disciplinary proceedings for allegedly Sexual Harassment or sexual assault. This one was against Purdue University in indiana, and she wrote what has become an influential opinion on how to evaluate the actions of universities. This opinion has been favorably relied upon in literally dozens of opinions since. What she found is that while the student in question had a protected liberty interest under the due process clause in his ability to participate the judgment against him by the university resulted in his expulsion, so it was not purely a stigma that he faced. She demonstrated and expand why the universitys procedures were clearly deficient under the due process clause. Purdue university provided the student less process than a High School Student is entitled to if they are going to be suspended from high school for a week. A judgment of guilty was rendered, among other things, without hearing directly from the student that he had allegedly assaulted. That student did not testify against him, did not submit a statement directly against him. Nonetheless, the university decided the allegations against him were supported by a preponderance of evidence, and judge barrett wrote an opinion reversing the lower courts dismissal of both his due process and title ix claims. What may also be of interest of this case, dutch barrett found that the University Officials were entitled to the qualified immunity because their violations, the due process violations had not been clearly established under seventh circuit caselaw. Although under her opinion, the university would be. She does not have much in the way of environmental cases, but she does have several standing opinions, which i think suggests she is someone who takes article three standings seriously. There is something almost scaliaesque in her standing opinions. Justice scalia cared a lot about article three standing and ensuring that courts made sure that only those litigants who should be in court were in court. That doesnt mean she has a reflexive vote against standing. She has found standing against the seat of unsolicited text messages, but she has scrutinized claims of injury and claims of causality very carefully, and we are ending on this point because this is an area where if i had to make up make a prediction she will , definitely be different than Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg. Justice ginsburg was arguably the most permissive when it came to article three standing of current justices, the most willing to find standing under article three. And i would suggest based on her record that judge barrett would provide a much more rigorous standing inquiry with a narrower view of what article three allows. I have probably gone over, so i will stop there. John, the floor is yours. John i want to thank jonathan for what he did now by giving an overview that was very fine, and i concur in everything you said about her approach. My only objection to what jonathan said is that he stole some of my thunder. He went into the standing cases, which were assigned to me. Come on, jonathan. Anyway, people were concerned about what her viewpoint was that she expressed years ago, an article was john garvey, than professor at notre dame, Capital Punishment, her role as a catholic has an influence on her. In two Capital Punishment related cases, not on the substance but on the question of the last minute application for delay and the execution, she voted against granting the stay in both cases, so that ought to give some people worried about that some kind of comfort at least. The criminal law area is one i want to go into. I have to tell you this briefly. Years ago when she was going to be a first year law student, she was listed in my criminal law class. The first day i showed up, she is not there. She went to notre dame, the best decision she ever made, because it would be years later before she would be a Supreme Court clerk, and it was thankfully to that faculty that got her along the track. In any event, and criminal law, she generally is upholding convictions, but the results dont tell you anything. Most cases of criminal conviction are going to be upheld. That is just statistics. So what she really has to do is look at the cases. I will go to a couple of cases. In u. S. Versus king, which was mainly about a brady issue, it was very interesting. She went very carefully, as jonathan has already described her methodology, and the first part of the test was this helpful to the defendant . She said yes, yes, and then she went through the other two carefully and said no, on balance it does not amount to a brady violation. On the other hand, she can be really tough on ethics. U. S. Versus atwood, the sentencing judge had communicated with the u. S. Attorneys office, per se parte on, ex communication, boom, vacated immediately and sent the case back to for sentencing by another judge. You cannot really categorize her in this area because she is thorough and she is fair. The Fourth Amendment cases are interesting. There are two cases, the terry stop is in the watson case, not in the terry case. There was this anonymous tip, and that is always a problem. The tip came from a 14yearold kid was using somebody elses cell phone to report on some kids in basically a high crime area. And he said they are fooling around with guns, the cops came, and thought that was sufficient for a terry stop, and she said no. She went through the latest case, went point by point, and really interesting, one of the keys in that case from the Supreme Court was if it came from a cell phone to a 911 call, you could trace it. In this case, she pointed out that in fact it did not come from the kids phone, it came from somebody elses phone, so it could not be traced. He was in a rough neighborhood, and people in poor neighborhoods are entitled to the same gun rights as people in wealthy neighborhoods. That clearly was a factor. It was interesting. Again, in everything i have seen her right, it has been detailed in a way that few people on the Supreme Court have been i think in particular about Justice Alito and his care in detail. Justice scalia was also detail, but he had a lot of words that are rare and judge barretts jurisprudence. The jurisdiction, she has a case involving a couple cases involving jurisdiction, and i think as jonathan has already indicated, she was a stickler on jurisdiction. One was a case on a foreign defendant, and in a specific jurisdiction, even the long arm statute of wisconsin says you can tell the guy know. You can tell the guy no. She said there was not sufficient context. I like it because i think that has been greatly abused over the years. Interesting case involved they are hard to get come as you know. The a particular authority in this case got the district judge after the judge ruled against the party to grant an appeal. And throughout a 10day period, the wrong email address was types, the email bounced back, it did not go back to where it should have, and it went to the spam folder. By the time they found it, it was past the 10day period. The question was, is this jurisdictional or just plain processing . She went through everything and said, no, this has to be jurisdictional based on the Supreme Court opinion, etc. , etc. The standing issues are important, separation of powers, as jonathan was pointing out. And in one case, castillo, the fair credit act, she had the fact that there was a mistake did not mean it was a harm, and a harm is the first thing you have to establish for standing. She was following a key case in terms of the Supreme Court. It was a scalia opinion, and she had the statement that we are empowered to hear cases under the constitution, but it cannot be freewheeling. You know, again, the other thing that she did was in the opposite direction in a sense, but it was a different case, difference statute. She cited her opinion in the first case to reach an opposite result in the next case. In involved the telephone Consumer Protection act, and she started out with a quote i love and i think others have heard it before. She said, the wording of this provision we interpret today is enough to make a grammarian throw down her pen. She is a real grammarian. You can say that about many statutes, especially criminal law statutes. But she goes with the common law history, disagrees with the 11th circuit, and goes, this may not qualify as common law, but congress decided it was a harm. She was careful distinguishing it from the prior case. The prior case was a procedural right, which scalia pointed out constantly that procedural rights cannot trump the requirements of standing under article three. Here it was different. It was a substantive harm that congress recognized, and that traced back to common law. She saw that the harm was sufficient itself. Tax injunction case was interesting. It is hard to get around the restriction on Federal District court in terms of taxpayer going into federal court. It is a jurisdictional issue. But in this case, they reversed the decision and throughout the case. Why . Because it requires that in order to be restricted to the state court, the state has to apply something that is speedy and efficient and i forget what else. The Supreme Court upheld the process in an earlier case, but then they change the process, and she pointed out why infect it nonted out why in fact longer met the test. That was very interesting. In terms of more general power , i read her article that was a critique of randy barnetts book on our republic. And again, it is thoughtful, careful, everything else. But at one point she said randy is not an originalist, which im sure he did not appreciate that. Unlike a lot of judges who never thought about their philosophy until they got to the Supreme Court, we have been getting a lot better about appointing justices who have thought about their philosophy. And if anybody who has thought about it clearly, she has. For six years, she and i lectured back to back at blackstone program. She would always lecture on ism and interpretation. Shes got it down cold. I will turn it over. You were mentioning before about separation of powers cases. One other case, the name that escapes me both parties appealed. She was skeptical. And they ended up dismissing. She got the supplemental brief as to whether they reached the dollar threshold, and it turns out the court ended up determining that they did not and that the District Court judge in one of the cases i refer to that i skipped over quickly because i covered it, the defendant did raise it. She was in the seventh circuit, and when easterbrook got on that bench, lawyers are supposed to know that you have got to know the standing issues because if you dont, the judges are going to hit you with it. The floor is yours. Thanks very much. After discussions of regulatory law and civil procedure, i am left with the boring aspect of her jurisprudence, what she thinks of overturning president , overturning precedent, abortion, and guns, so bear with me, audience, as i get through these dreary subjects. Off,ck up where john left her overall philosophy she herself said that she is very much like her mentor, Justice Scalia, in terms of originalist m and also with the much discussed doctrine of sometimes letting stand erroneous precedent because correcting them would cost more in terms of societal disruption then getting them right would benefit. This is a prudential consideration, not tied to ideology or judicial method, it is just how different judges think about the weight of precedent. Justice thomas rarely if ever has met an erroneous precedent that he would let stand for reasons of being decisive. Justice scalia was much more cautious. She is definitely closer to scalia. She might be softer on certain types of issues. On the one hand she wrote in the texas law review, a majority cannot impose its vision with only votes. It must defend its approach to the constitution and be sure enough of its approach to settle reliance interests. Im sure there was going to be a discussion of what reliance interests mean at her hearing. On the other hand, she wrote less rides on the strength of , then commonly supposed. Especially in statutory cases were congress can simply overturn the court, there is perhaps more leeway, where as in constitutional cases were only the court can overturn itself or of course the constitutional amendment, maybe the court has to be more vigilant about being closer to the constitution being a true originalist. She has a great article on originalism. Moreover, there are super precedents she says, for example, brown v. Board of education. Theyre called that because they are not contested. The Supreme Court would never overturn them. It is not enough people repeating a mantra over and over again. It shows that the court is quite capable of transforming incapable of transforming precedent into super precedent by asserting again and again that this is right. If legal issues are still contested, then by definition that is not being settled. This doesnt mean that barrett is all set to overturn planned parenthood or roe v. Wade. At a luncheon in 2013, she said it is very unlikely that the board is going to overturn roe or roe as curbed by casey. The fundamental element that a woman has a right to choose abortion will probably stand. In a 2016 lecture at jacksonville university, barrett said although there could be changes in the way states are allowed to restrict abortion, the core holding of roe is unlikely to change. That nibbling around the edges has already been borne out in her judicial opinions. Commissioner versus planned parenthood of indiana, she dissented after a threejudge panel struck down an indiana law that banned abortions relating to sex, race, or disability. Using abortion to create eugenic goals is morally and prudential he debatable. None of the Supreme Court abortion decisions holds that states are powerless to prevent such abortions in box versus planned parenthood of indiana, she joined another dissent regarding a parental notice law because the law was enjoined before it took effect and thus violated the principle of federalism. What john was talking about, the structural components of constitutional law, even when talking about rights, structure still matters. Having barrett on the court would likely allow some abortion regulations to survive that would otherwise or previously be invalidated. Think about just this past term with the june medical cases, louisiana regulations. But both prolife and prochoice activists are overselling the case that she represents a threat to roe because there are not already four votes to overturn it in the first place. Did you want to talk about gun rights at all . Second amendment . Gun rights, of course. So entranced by wanting to get back to jurisdictional and civil procedure issues that im i neglected to go back. Probably her most famous case is in the area of the Second Amendment, it is a case that i filed an amicus brief in, so i dont know why i forgot about it. In this case, she defended the right of nonviolent felons to own guns, focusing on the framers understanding of Second Amendment rights. She wrote a 37 page dissent to, i think, a 26 page majority opinion that maintained a categorical bar on sailing on sale and dispossession. Purely being a felony, doesnt matter whether he was dangerous or being a violent felon. Ricky cantor had pleaded guilty to mail fraud. He said the shoe inserts that he were medicare approved. She stressed that the Second Amendment confers individual rights connected with the natural right of selfdefense and not limited to civic participation. This Supreme Court since the heller case in 2008 has not fleshed out the scope of the second moment right. Second amendment right. Lower courts have had to do that work, often in conflicting ways. What she said, describing a historical record dating to the founding, is that this establishes that the government cannot bar gun ownership arbitrarily. Categorically disarmed groups when they are effect to public safety, but neither the bench proposals or historical practice can categorically disarmed felons because of their felon status. A categorical ban is overly broad and overly narrow because or have this Medicare Fraud obstruction of justice, and then you can have misdemeanors, guilty of misdemeanor for domestic violence, and that could be a danger but nevertheless are not covered by these felon dispossession laws. So taking, again, the history and structure and text in a seriously and scholarly and thoughtful manner. Following up on that, do you think that having a Justice Barrett on the court that it is more likely that the court will pick up more Second Amendment cases . By all indications, after the court voted 63 to move the case out of new york over a dissent in a concurrence, Justice Kavanaugh said, but we have plenty of cases coming up, and i am basically saying that he agreed with the dissent on the merit. Then a few weeks later when the court denied a slew of certain petitions by thomas and cavanaugh, i think what the reporting showed her what can be inferred is that Justice Roberts told his colleagues not to rely on him on any particular Second Amendment issue. This is certainly an area where if judge barrett becomes Justice Barrett, i think there would be a fifth reliable vote to start fleshing out the scope of the right and ending the confusion or willful disobedience of some of the lower courts in this area. I have gotten some terrific audience questions. I think im going to leap right in with some of those, and then let me know who wants to go first. One obvious question is that republicans do not always have a great track record when it comes to appointing conservative justices. Go back to earl warren and bill brennan, president eisenhower was asked if he made any mistakes when he left office. He said yes, and both of them are sitting on the Supreme Court. David souter, some would say anthony kennedy. Sandra day oconnor. Even the chief justice. What makes us think that Amy Coney Barrett is not going to become like one of them . I will take that. John. Ok, so, we cannot overly rely on Circuit Court opinion. That is, i heard Justice Blackmun say years ago that he really had never thought about his philosophy until he got on the Supreme Court, and that rehnquist had signed off on him. So youve got to be careful. Certainly you have to look not only at the results, youve got to look at the reasoning. But also it is character. That is what counts. And the question really is are they willing to be vilified . Alito has been vilified, thomas has been vilified, scalia has been vilified. Others when they tend to be vilified tend to go squishy. On the Supreme Court, it brings out whatever character weaknesses you have. If you are ambitious, the character weakness that tends to affect a lot of us is vanity. So when you are up there and you become the most powerful person, the media tells you, because you have the swing vote, it really goes to your head, i suppose. You have got to put people up there for whom their ambition has not been to get on the Supreme Court. I can tell you, that has not been judged barretts ambition. Probably never occurred to her until a couple of years ago. I will just add that there are no guarantees in this sort of thing. On the left it is a lot easier because of the general leftwing tilt of the legal profession, especially at elite levels. And whatever interpretive scenarios they might be applying in the most controversial cases, they achieve the socalled right result for that side. On the right, republican appointed justices, there is a lot more difference in how they approach the task, even those who are originalists and contextualists. You think about thomas, alito more deferential to law and order in various respects. Justice kavanaugh, history and structure, but perhaps more structured in between the roberts minimalism, and gorsuch. Barrett, being like scalia, will slot in there, but not like her other colleagues. I had forgotten Justice Blackmun, but Harry Blackmun added to that list the disappointments of concerted legal that tells you something. Another great question i got some theorize that Justice Roberts does not like being in the minority opinion. With another conservative judge on the bench tipping the balance, will chief Justice Roberts be more reliably conservative . What happens to the chief . The chief is a judicial minimalist. That is very clear in his record. It is very consistent in his record. That is the way he approaches most questions. We can debate why that is. My assumption is that until he is that it is somewhat generational, that when he was working, first working as a lawyer, his view of the failings of the Supreme Court or that it was too aggressive and he favored a more kind of Alexander Bickel minimalist view, and that has carried through. That is why he doesnt like lower court injunctions, that is why he doesnt like long decisions. The challenge will be is that he will have less ability to achieve that, other than through opinion assignment. One thing i think will be very interesting to watch is the extent to which he is able to use the opinion assignment power, being the most senior justice, to direct the way the court approaches certain questions, and to what extent are there cases where some of the other justices rebel . Because if he keeps an opinion for himself and writes a narrow opinion than the others would be happy with, there is always the possibility he loses the opinion and that is something to watch. At the end of the day, he is more minimalist. Since he has been chief justice, the Supreme Court strikes down federal statute at a lower rate, edents. Ns its prior prec that has been the pattern with him as chief. Those are things he definitely things are good things. He doesnt like overturning, precedent, he does not like strengthening statutes. I think he is going to try to maintain that course as much as he can. I think he wanted to be the roberts court. He did not want it to be the kagan court. With five votes without him, i think it will pull him over there so he can control but also so he can be on the winning side. We know that despite his minimalism, he has flipped a couple of times, for whatever reasons, and he may experience a new dynamic that causes him to do backflips. Conversely, in some cases, he may join with the liberals, knowing that the side that he wants is still going to win. This way he can make it look nonpartisan or bipartisan. Another good audience question. There have been a lot of conservative groups certainly are trying to trim the sale of chevron deference, and the Supreme Court went a fair ways down that road, and conservatives have also tried to revive the nondelegation doctrine that was the case where they almost all im curious whether you think Justice Barrett is going to move the needle one way or the other in terms of these challenges, in deference to executive branch agencies, or the ability of congress to give broad delegation, the power to those agencies . If she follows her mentor, she wont. Right before he died, he was reconsidering things. He told a group of us that he was reconsidering deference. I dont know where she would go on that, but i think one would have to hope that maybe kavanaugh can lead on this. What i would say is, she hasnt had to confront these questions very much as a jurist, and it really wasnt the focus of her scholarship, so it is not clear that she has strong priors in this area. One thing i would note, i think overall the court is likely to shift its law doctrines more on the margins than there is likely to be a revolution. That is to say what we saw with our deference, the court upholding it but dramatically narrowing it is more of the kind of thing i think we will see. In the nondelegation contact, i am skeptical that we will get a full revival. But i think nondelegation concerns could very well lead to do what judge kavanaugh did as a d. C. Circuit judge, bringing skeptically concerns of authority and bringing concerns of their influence on interpretation. Judge barrett is a textual list. Textualist. I recommend the lecture that she gave at case western last year that has been published. Unlike some textualists, see seems to be that she seems to be more aligned with substantive she suggests she might be more comfortable with substantive canons than some, and that would be an opening for her to join with Justice Kavanaugh in, for example, reinvigorating and strengthening the major questions doctrine as a way of making addressing delegation concerns without fully opening up the doctrine. I will just add that the major questions, gorsuch has written about, have you that how you have i draw it how you have hydraulic questions. That if you have one doctor who cannot treat, you can go to another. Kavanaugh, who was not in the case originally but in a later statement about a denial said the case name was poe, was also on board. I think we will see some movement when the right case is presented. So far the cases have involved International Trade and foreign affairs. I would worry about keeping the chief in those cases. The chief justice has joined and written some law dissents. When push comes to shove, he has not joined a majority to significantly alter Administrative Law, and im concerned that trend will continue. In fact, he was the concurring opinion in kaiser versus wilkie when you mentioned , Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas tells the story that they were on the bench once and Justice Scalia turned to thomas and said our opinion, just a terrible, terrible opinion. And thomas turned back and said, you wrote it. Justice kagan really rewrote it. Roberts concurrence as well as kavanaughs dissent, both roberts and kavanaugh emphasized there was very little daylight between the majority dissenting opinions. Another interesting audience question that i got, because clearly she is going to be attacked in certain quarters, that these are your personal beliefs and you are going to rule with your personal beliefs and not going to follow the law. Can any of you think of any examples in which you have seen judge barrett take a position in a case in which you suspect that, had it been up to her personal beliefs or personal views, she would have come out differently rather than following the law to reach the results she reached. Real briefly, if you look at her immigration cases, i would assume that she has a policy preference on immigration. I have no idea what it is, but she has written opinions that were very forgiving and helpful to immigrants, and some that were very stringent. The common denominator is that she followed with the law required. In one center or the other, she had to reach some results she didnt like. There was also a case involving a parochial schools ability to avail itself of Public School busing in milwaukee, where she joined the majority opinion rejecting the equal protection claim of the parochial school. Based on what we know about her faith and certainly based on the caricature presented by those who attack her, it is hard to reconcile her opinion with what it is assumed her views are about parochial education. As john mentioned before, her opinions in Death Penalty related cases certainly are not in line with church teaching, which further suggests that she understands the oath she gives as a jurist is to apply the law before her, whether or not that coincides with her personal, moral, or other beliefs. I dont think she necessarily agrees with some of the cases she has had to deal with, but again, i think she is following what Justice Scalia used to say, that i reach a lot of cases results when i am letting criminals go that i dont want to let go. Her husband was an ausa. There are a lot of reasons for her not to be as careful as she is, but she is. Im assuming that Justice Scalia was also not particularly a big fan of flagburning, but he joined that opinion. One other case. There is a case which im pretty confident she disagreed with the outcome. There was a case involving a buffer zone of free speech, free zone or no speech zone effectively around abortion clinics where she joined an opinion by judge sykes, if i call correctly, to uphold that buffer zone because there is a case which i certainly think was horribly decided, and i suspect she does as well colorado versus hill, where the Supreme Court upheld an identical statute. I think it is pretty clear that the seventh circuit was bound by that, and she did not make any effort to find some clever argument around the relevant Supreme Court precedent, and applied it even though it produced a result that i am quite sure that she found to be problematic on multiple levels. One final question from an audience member described her as a selfprofessed laundered and d, andfprofessed law ner pointed out that the late Justice Ginsburg had a particular expertise and interest in jurisdiction cases. And this selfprofessed law nerd wants to know if there are any areas of law in which Justice Barrett made sort of may sort of carve out her own area of expertise in less of a hot button topic in order to help . Well, she taught civil procedure, so it very well may be. Similarly as Justice Ginsburg on issues like standing and personal jurisdiction as well as kind of separation of powers, more federal Court Jurisdiction type things, that that is where she could be influential. I should add on a more broadly speaking, given the graciousness and the charm that she displayed we all saw in the rose garden ceremony, she potentially could be influential behind the scenes in ways that her mentor with sharper elbows might not have been. She has concurrence in the case which is a postconviction challenge relating to the criminal act, relating to the standards for postconviction relief under section 2255. Something that matters a lot in federal Court Challenges to state court convictions, and she did not write very many concurrences on the seventh circuit, but she did here because she thought the law was very messy and wanted to not make an argument about what the law should be, but just that the court needs to clarify this so the lower courts have greater guidance and so that litigants have greater guidance. I would not be surprised if that is an issue that she looks to find a case to address, not because again, i dont have any particular policy outcome that she wants to see but having dealt with his area of law, she meant it serves no ones interest, an area of the law that is a mess, confusing. I think that sort of thing is useful because part of the whole point of having a single Supreme Court is to help ensure a certain degree of consistency for federal law throughout the country. I knew that this hour would fly by, and my apologies to those audience members who submitted questions i did not get to. A moment ago we talked about how gracious and courteous judge barrett was during her rose garden presentation. I look forward to seeing how courteous the questioners are when they start posing questions to judge barrett tuesday and wednesday. With that i want to thank everybody who tuned in. Thank you for being with us today

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