A new book details how Chief Justice John Roberts lost control of an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court as it moved to overturn the constitutional right to abortion last year.
The book, written by veteran Supreme Court reporter and CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic and based in part on interviews with unnamed justices, describes conservative disgruntlement with Roberts leading up to the abortion case. The court voted 5-4 to toss out the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, with Roberts failing to persuade any of his colleagues to join him in a narrower ruling.
Biskupic writes in “Nine Black Robes” that conservative justices “privately complained to me” about Roberts after he cast the key vote in 2020 to block then-President Donald Trump from ending the DACA deferred-deportation program. She also says colleagues thought Roberts “was acting peremptorily” when he imposed a plan to hold 10 arguments by telephone when the pandemic began that year.
