Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was officially sworn in as the first black woman on the Supreme Court Thursday, just minutes after Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement from the bench took effect.
Jackson, 51, was sworn in shortly after noon, two hours after the high court issued its final two opinions of a momentous term. Her husband Patrick, the chief of general surgery at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, and their two daughters joined her for the ceremony.
Breyer, for whom Jackson once clerked, and Chief Justice John Roberts administered the two oaths a new justice is required to swear, known as the Constitutional and Judicial oaths.
I the first oath, given by Roberts, Jackson swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic … bear true faith and allegiance to the same … take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion … and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office.”
Moments later Jackson swore to Breyer that she “will administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that she will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon” her.
“All the members of the court, I’m pleased to welcome Justice Jackson,” Roberts said immediately after she completed the oaths and became the 116th person to become a Supreme Court justice.
Jackson, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, was confirmed by the Senate to replace Breyer in April, with three Republican lawmakers siding with all 50 Democrats in support of her nomination.
Jackson, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, was confirmed to replace Breyer in April in a 53-47 Senate vote, with three Republican lawmakers siding with the Democrats.
Biden first nominated Jackson to the position in late February, touting her “extraordinary qualifications” at the time.
After graduating from Harvard Law in 1996, Jackson held numerous jobs in the legal field, including clerking for multiple federal jurists. From 2005 to 2007, she worked as an assistant federal public defender. During that period, she represented Guantanamo Bay prisoner and Afghan terror suspect Khi Ali Gul.
Not long after, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to the DC District Court, where she handed down many sentences related to child pornography cases. Those sentences came under heavy scrutiny during her confirmation hearings as some Republicans declared them too lenient.
During Jackson’s tenure on the district court, she also sentenced Edgar Maddison Welch to four year in prison for opening fire in a busy DC pizzeria while “investigating” “Pizzagate”, a bizarre conspiracy theory that claimed Hillary Clinton was behind a child sex ring.
In early 2021, Jackson was nominated to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by Biden to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland. She was also approved to the position with bipartisan support.
Jackson was among the three judges who ruled against former President Donald Trump in his bid to withhold documents from the House committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot.
Jackson is now the fourth Supreme Court Justice to be elevated from the DC Circuit, joining Thomas, Roberts, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Previous DC Circuit alums to join the court also include late Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as former Chief Justice Warren Burger.
The Supreme Court is set to begin its next term Oct. 3 and a formal investiture for the new justice will be held sometime in the fall.
They chose her as a token. Which is insulting. Either way it was not a good choice. Her morals and judgment are questionable at best.