A superstar among the religious right, Judge Amy Coney Barrett would be the fifth woman to serve on the court and the youngest justice confirmed since 1991, if picked. | Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP Amy Coney Barrett: Who is she? Bio, facts, background and political views

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 46, is one of President Donald Trump’s finalists to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

A superstar among the religious right, Barrett would be the fifth woman to serve on the court and the youngest justice confirmed since Clarence Thomas was elevated to the Court at age 43 in 1991.


Barrett is a newcomer to the bench, joining the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit less than a year ago in October 2017. A graduate of Notre Dame University Law School, Barrett clerked for the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia and later returned to Notre Dame’s law school as a member of the faculty.

Barrett was vaulted into the headlines during her 2017 confirmation hearings when she was pressed on how her Catholic faith could impact her jurisprudence.

“The dogma lives loudly within you,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said at one point during the hearing. “That’s of concern.”

The comments were widely criticized by conservatives who said Democrats were showing religious bigotry in their consideration of Barrett.

“I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law,” Barrett said during the hearing.

That sentiment echoed a 1998 law review article she co-wrote about Catholic judges and death penalty cases which concluded: “Judges cannot-nor should they try to-align our legal system with the Church's moral teaching whenever the two diverge.”

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Like other originalists, she has at times criticized the practice of stare decisis – in which judges rely on precedent – when the judge feels past rulings conflict with the Constitution.

“In a system of precedent, the new majority bears the weight of explaining why the constitutional vision of their predecessors was flawed and of making the case as to why theirs better captures the meaning of our fundamental law,” she wrote in a piece discussing the issue.

The question of whether Barrett would be willing to cast a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade would likely loom large at her confirmation hearings.

She is married to Jesse Barrett, an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Indiana. The couple has seven children.

