Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host and law professor, wrote in a Fox News opinion column that interviews with Supreme Court justices require careful guardrails to protect the appearance and reality of impartiality, and he praised Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s new book as a resource for the public.
In the column, Hewitt said he has interviewed four sitting justices — Stephen Breyer, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Barrett — and described why justices must be discreet about public appearances to ensure litigants facing the court can expect judges to keep an open mind. Hewitt noted Barrett’s comment in a Fox News interview that justices "wear black, not red or blue," a line he used to illustrate the expectation of nonpartisanship.
Hewitt said it is valuable that sitting justices write books that are accessible to lay readers and singled out Barrett’s Listening to the Law as well as Neil Gorsuch’s Overruled and Stephen Breyer’s Making Our Democracy Work. He described those works as explanations of judicial method and doctrine that can help nonlawyers understand how the Court approaches cases. Hewitt also cited Clarence Thomas’s memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, as an account of the justice’s personal and professional trajectory.
The column emphasized that the Supreme Court is a court of limited jurisdiction established by Article III of the Constitution and subsequent statutes, and that justices do not have authority to launch broad, policy-making inquiries outside the specific "cases" and "controversies" that come before them. Hewitt wrote that public commentary by justices could create the impression that they had decided issues before hearing related cases, undermining confidence in the Court’s deliberative processes.
Hewitt outlined practical considerations for interviewers of justices, saying questions and public appearances should respect doctrines that limit the Court’s reach and the canons that govern judicial deliberation. He wrote that the best exposition of those constraints and procedures for a general audience is Barrett’s book, which he described as beginning with the assumption that readers are intelligent but not legally trained and walking them through doctrines and internal procedures.
Hewitt is the host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," a syndicated radio program, and a professor of law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law. In his column he identified civility in public discourse as a concern and said he hopes the example set by judicial restraint and accessible judicial writing will raise the level of debate outside the courts.
The column appeared in the Fox News opinion section, and its observations reflect Hewitt’s view as a commentator and interviewer with long experience in national media and legal commentary. The justices’ books and public remarks referenced in the column are in the public record and have been cited by commentators as sources for understanding judicial philosophy and institutional limits.