Biden Picks DC Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for Supreme Court
If the Senate approves her nomination, DC Circuit Court Judge Jackson will be the first African-American woman to sit on the nation's highest court, and the first justice who has experience as a public defender.
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
President Joe Biden will name D.C. Circuit Court Judge Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill the Supreme Court vacancy when Justice Stephen Breyer retires, according to multiple media reports.
If the Senate approves her nomination, Jackson will be the first African-American woman to sit on the court, and the first justice who has experience as a public defender.
“Not since Thurgood Marshall has there been a Supreme Court justice with any real experience as a defense lawyer,” said one commentary in Axios.
Jackson, 51, would be the second-youngest justice on the current court (Justice Amy Coney Barrett turned 50 in January) and the first justice since Thurgood Marshall with significant experience as a defense lawyer.
Jackson would not change the court’s current 6-to-3 conservative supermajority.
Jackson joined the DC federal bench in June, after she was confirmed by a 53-44 vote with the support of three Senate Republicans.
But Jackson also served eight years as a federal trial judge in Washington. At her confirmation hearing for that position, she received an endorsement from former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who is related by marriage. (Her husband’s twin brother is the married to the sister of Ryan’s wife.)
“Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity, is unequivocal. She is an amazing person,” Ryan said.
Jackson grew up in Miami, where her mother was a school administrator and her father was a lawyer for the Miami-Dade school board.
“When people ask me why I decided to go into the legal profession,” she said in a 2017 speech, “I often tell the story of how, when I was in preschool, I would sit at the dining room table doing my homework with my father. He had all his law books stacked up, and I had all my coloring books stacked up.”
One of her uncles was a Miami police chief. Another was a police detective. A third was sentenced to life in prison for possessing a large amount of cocaine. President Barack Obama commuted his sentence in 2016.
She would also be only the sixth woman to serve on the court, and her confirmation would mean that for the first time four women would sit together on the nine-member court, reports the Chicago Tribune.
The current court includes three women, one of whom is the court’s first Latina, Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
See also: Why We Need a Public Defender on the Supreme Court, Emily Galvin-Almanza, The Crime Report, Feb. 24, 2022
