Judge John Bush first learned of the term “dubitante” shortly after he joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2017, when he was penning a separate opinion in a Sixth Amendment case.

Bush’s law clerk at the time brought up the idea of labeling the writing as “dubitante,” which comes from the Latin word meaning “doubtful” and is typically used to express reservations with a majority decision’s rationale without declaring it wrong.