Richard Posner is the latest judge to learn that while confession may be good for the soul, when a judge does the confessing, people sit up, notice and take potshots.

In just one line in the newest of 40 books by the court of appeals judge, Posner wrote “I plead guilty” to having written a decision upholding Indiana’s voter ID law. Posner said he has since come to realize that such laws are “now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.”