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Greg Stohr of Bloomberg reports that Random Home has agreed to publish a memoir by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the latest Supreme Court docket justice. As Stohr notes, this has develop into one thing of a development on the Court docket.
Jackson’s memoir, Pretty One, will inform her life’s story, from her childhood in Miami to her affirmation final yr as the primary Black feminine justice, based on her writer, Random Home.
It may additionally make Jackson the fourth present justice to get a e-book advance of not less than $1 million, becoming a member of Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett. Though Random Home did not disclose the phrases of Jackson’s deal, Barrett reportedly secured a $2 million advance from a special imprint at Penguin Random Home LLC in 2021. . . .
Sotomayor acquired a $1.175 million advance in 2010 and all instructed has collected greater than $3 million for her memoir. She has additionally written a collection of kids’s books. Thomas collected $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir.
Stohr notes some is perhaps “uneasy” with this form of association, however a lot of the authorized ethics specialists he consults don’t see an moral downside with justices getting paid to write down books (and they’re proper).
“I do not see an issue with justices writing books in return for fee beneath ethics and recusal legal guidelines, so long as they’re clear about that and report the revenue as required beneath federal legislation,” mentioned Amanda Frost, a College of Virginia Faculty of Regulation professor who research judicial ethics.
Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethics scholar at New York College Regulation Faculty, mentioned that “there isn’t any bar to a justice writing her memoirs and getting handsomely compensated for it.”
When Justice Barrett signed her e-book deal, some progressive commentators were nonetheless scandalized. We’ll see whether or not they’re as upset by Justice Jackson getting comparable therapy.