Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivers 1st opinion
Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered her first Supreme Court majority opinion Thursday, ruling against an environmental group that had sought access to government records.
President Donald Trump's third nominee wrote for a 7-2 court that certain draft documents do not have to be disclosed under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The case was the first one Barrett heard after joining the court in late October, and it took four months for the 11-page to be released. Two liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented.
It is something of a tradition for new justices to be assigned a case in which the court is unanimous for their first opinion, but it doesn't always happen. Both of Trump's other nominees, and , wrote unanimous first opinions. Sotomayor also got a unanimous opinion for her first assignment, but President Barack Obama's other nominee, Justice Elena Kagan, was assigned a first opinion where the court divided 8-1.
The opinion Barrett wrote involved the environmental group the Sierra Club, which sued seeking access to federal government documents involving certain structures used to cool industrial equipment and their potential harm to endangered wildlife. Barrett began by explaining that FOIA makes 바카라 게임 웹사이트records available to the public upon request, unless those records fall within one of nine exemptions.바카라 게임 웹사이트 Those exemptions include 바카라 게임 웹사이트documents generated during an agency바카라 게임 웹사이트s deliberations about a policy, as opposed to documents that embody or explain a policy that the agency adopts.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Barrett said the documents the Sierra Club was seeking were draft documents that did not need to be disclosed. And she dismissed concerns the group had raised that ruling against it would encourage officials to 바카라 게임 웹사이트stamp every document 바카라 게임 웹사이트draft바카라 게임 웹사이트바카라 게임 웹사이트 to avoid disclosing them. Barrett said that if 바카라 게임 웹사이트evidence establishes that an agency has hidden a functionally final decision in draft form바카라 게임 웹사이트 then it won바카라 게임 웹사이트t be protected from disclosure requirements.
File video: Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to Supreme Court
Barrett's predecessor on the court, , liked to recount that she was assigned a 바카라 게임 웹사이트miserable바카라 게임 웹사이트 case involving a federal law about pensions for her first opinion, a case on which the court had divided 6-3. She said that though she and the court's first female justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, were on different sides of the case, when she announced the opinion in court, O'Connor passed her a note that said: 바카라 게임 웹사이트This is your first opinion for the Court, it is a fine one, I look forward to many more.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the justices are not currently announcing their decisions in the courtroom but only posting them online.
Barrett's opinion Thursday was not the first writing the public has seen from her as a justice. Last month, she wrote a paragraph-long in a case in which the justices told the state of California that it can바카라 게임 웹사이트t bar indoor church services because of the coronavirus pandemic, but could maintain a ban on singing and chanting indoors.