Law, memoir, and the mystery of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s writing
The Supreme Court justice memoir, so lucrative for its authors, tends to be a less than illuminating genre. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s A Republic, If You Can Keep It reiterated the case for originalism and attempted to illustrate why he was a worthy successor to Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Listening to the Law re...
The strongest version of this narrative highlights a compelling paradox: Justice Kennedy’s memoir reveals a thoughtful, literate, and self-aware writer, yet his judicial opinions were often lambasted for vagueness and grandiosity. The article gives Kennedy credit for his intellectual depth and literary engagement, contrasting his personal voice with his judicial persona. It also acknowledges the legitimacy of critiques from figures like Scalia, who saw Kennedy’s rhetoric as legally hollow, while...