In the News

The Miami Herald Article

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s legal journey started at her family’s dinner table in Miami. It has culminated with a historic appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jackson will succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the nation’s high court after the Senate voted 53 to 47 Thursday to confirm the judge to the lifetime position. Senators gave an enthusiastic standing ovation when Vice President Kamala Harris read out the historic vote result Thursday afternoon. Jackson will be the 116th person to serve on the court. All but seven of the justices who came before her have been white men.

A daughter of parents who grew up in segregated Miami, Jackson will become the first Black woman and the first Floridian on the court upon taking the oath of office following Breyer’s retirement, which will begin when the court takes its summer recess in June or July.

“I personally cannot think of anything more impactful that has happened for Black people in Miami-Dade County … And I have lived in Miami-Dade County all of my life,” said Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, a longtime friend of the judge’s family.

Wilson, who represents several of South Florida’s historically Black communities, promised her constituents a ticker-tape parade the day Jackson was nominated, something she said she’s trying to facilitate. She compared Jackson’s confirmation to President Barack Obama’s election in 2008, saying that in recent weeks she’s heard from senior citizens and schoolchildren alike who feel connected to the incoming justice.

“I don’t think there’s anyone alive in Miami who does not know the name Ketanji Brown Jackson. Little children in schools know the name,” Wilson told the Miami Herald. “I’m waiting on the Ketanji Brown Jackson Barbie Doll to be developed.”

JACKSON’S MIAMI ROOTS

Jackson, 51, has repeatedly traced her decision to pursue a career in law to her father Johnny Brown’s career change from history teacher to lawyer in the 1970s.

She watched her father study his law books at the dinner table while she filled her coloring books alongside him. Jackson’s father eventually served as chief attorney for the Miami-Dade School Board, while her mother Ellery Brown served as principal of the New World School of the Arts in Miami.

During her confirmation hearings, Jackson reflected on the journey her family and the community as a whole made from her parents’ childhood to now.

“In one generation — one generation — we could go from racially segregated schools in Florida to have me sitting here as the first Floridian to ever be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States,” she said.

Wilson traced Jackson’s success to her Miami upbringing and the courage instilled in her by her parents. “She was in a majority-white school and she was a star. That has a lot to do with Ellery and Johnny,” Wilson said, referring to Jackson’s time on the debate team at Miami Palmetto Senior High School in the 1980s.

Jackson later attended Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate and law degrees. A former classmate told the Herald he expected great things from her then and that all Americans should take pride in this moment.

“Ketanji’s monumental achievement culminates four decades of hard work and a commitment to excellence. I have witnessed it,” said Miami lawyer Stephen Rosenthal, who attended both high school and Harvard with Jackson.

“She represents the promise of her generation: a supremely talented Black woman who grew up at a time in our country’s history where her opportunities knew no limits,” said Rosenthal, whose brother Richard Rosenthal testified on Jackson’s behalf at last month’s hearings.

FIRST PUBLIC DEFENDER ON THE NATION’S HIGH COURT

Jackson later clerked for Breyer, the justice she’ll succeed. She served in the Federal Public Defender’s Office, worked at international law firms and helped lead the U.S. Sentencing Commission before her appointment to the federal bench nine years ago.

“I always knew practically from Day 1 that she was a young lawyer destined for greatness and I was proven correct,” said Ken Feinberg, a prominent Washington attorney who employed Jackson early in her career.

“I think she’ll be a progressive force much like Justice Breyer, her mentor,” predicted Feinberg, who worked with Breyer when they were both Senate staffers in the 1970s.

Jackson will hold the distinction as the court’s first former public defender. Legal experts and advocates say this experience will bring a needed perspective to the court, which includes multiple former prosecutors.

“Judge Jackson’s background as a public defender makes her a unique addition to the Supreme Court because that experience provides an intimate understanding of how important it is to ensure that every person’s constitutional rights are fully protected within our legal system,” said Miami-Dade County Court Judge Ayana Harris, a former state and federal public defender.

Jackson’s background as a public defender came under scrutiny during her confirmation hearings as Republican senators sought to portray her as soft on crime and raise concerns about her defense work on behalf of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

A 2004 Supreme Court decision found that Guantanamo detainees had the right to petition federal courts for writs of habeas corpus. Jackson began working in the Federal Public Defender’s office the following year and worked on the cases of four detainees during her two-year tenure.

“It really is a patriotic calling,” said April Frazier Camara, president and CEO of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. “...Public defenders don’t choose their clients. They choose to represent and uphold constitutional rights of making sure everybody is afforded zealous representation and I think she did a great job of explaining that.”

During her confirmation hearing, Jackson told lawmakers that attorneys working on these cases during the height of the War on Terror were ensuring the nation’s values were upheld in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack.

But Republican lawmakers continued to attack her on the issue as the confirmation process moved forward.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, went as far as to invoke the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, noting Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson took a leave of absence from the court to go to Germany to prosecute Nazi war criminals.

“This Judge Jackson might’ve gone there to defend them,” Cotton, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and potential 2024 presidential contender, said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

Cotton’s speech — an example of the strikingly contentious confirmation process — was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, an international nonprofit that works to combat anti-Semitism.

Miami attorney Hector Flores criticized the “circus-like soap boxing” from Jackson’s opponents and called her public defender experience a refreshing addition to the court.

“It seems to me that any lawyer that accepts a position as a public defender has the kind of empathy that looks out for the underdog,” said Flores, who served as a federal public defender in South Florida from 1987 to 2008. “In my opinion, that’s not a bad quality for a judge to have.”

While Jackson had sailed through the Senate confirmation process three times before, a lifetime appointment to the high court meant a new level of scrutiny.

In addition to her Guantanamo work, Republicans hit Jackson over her sentencing decisions in child pornography cases. They also sought to tie her to the academic concept of critical race theory based on the curriculum at the Georgetown Day School, a private school in Washington where she sits on the board.

FLORIDIANS WATCHING AT HOME

Both of her home state senators, Republicans Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, opposed her confirmation. In a Wednesday speech, Scott accused Jackson’s case record of showing a pattern of leniency in child pornography cases.

“These are individuals who harmed children. They don’t deserve easy sentences or our sympathies,” Scott said.

Three Republicans did cross the aisle to support Jackson: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah. The support from Romney, the GOP’s 2012 nominee for president, is notable because he had opposed Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit just a year ago.

Wilson said Black Floridians watching at home were proud of the way Jackson handled the aggressive questioning from Republican lawmakers.

“To watch every day, this strong Black woman, who we all felt some kinship to because she is from Miami, stand up against men ... white men — I guess you can say they took off their hoods — she came through that scenario without losing her temper,” Wilson said.

Senate Democrats dismissed the GOP attacks as baseless. They instead focused their commentary on Jackson’s qualifications and the historic nature of her appointment.

“Judge Jackson’s going to make the court look more like America and hopefully think more like America. It will be a giant leap into the present because she will make the court more diverse in a way that is long overdue,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But Camara, the head of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, said the sense of history is bittersweet for her and other Black female attorneys.

“The fact that we’re talking about the first Black woman on the Supreme Court is to be celebrated,” she said. “But for people like me it’s also a moment where we ask, why did it take so long?”