Ketanji Brown Jackson

Ketanji Brown Jackson (born September 14, 1970) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2013 to 2021. Jackson has also been Vice Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2010 to 2014 and a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers since 2016.

Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Miami, Florida, Jackson attended Harvard University for college and law school, and served as an editor on the Harvard Law Review. She began her legal career with three clerkships, including with Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ketanji Onyika Brown was born on September 14, 1970, in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida. Her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, were both HBCU graduates and worked as an attorney and school principal, respectively. Jackson attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School from 1984 until 1988, where she was a national oratory champion. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, in government from Harvard University in 1992 and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1996, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Jackson served as a law clerk for three federal judges, including U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Patti B. Saris (1996–1997) and U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya (1997–1998). She then clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 until 2000.

Jackson worked in private legal practice from 1998 to 1999 and again from 2000 to 2003. From 2003 to 2005, she served as an assistant special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission.

From 2005 to 2007, Jackson was an assistant federal public defender in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2007 to 2010, Jackson was an appellate litigator at Morrison & Foerster.

Appointment to U.S. Sentencing Commission

On July 23, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to become Vice Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The U.S. Senate confirmed Jackson by unanimous consent on February 11, 2010. She succeeded Michael E. Horowitz, who had served from 2003 until 2009. Jackson served on the Sentencing Commission until 2014. During Jackson's time on the Sentencing Commission, it retroactively amended the Sentencing Guidelines to reduce the guideline range for crack cocaine offenses, and it enacted the "drugs minus two" amendment, which implemented a two offense-level reduction for drug crimes.

District Court service

On September 20, 2012, Obama nominated Jackson to serve as a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to the seat vacated by Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., who retired on November 18, 2011. On January 2, 2013, her nomination was returned to Obama because the Senate adjourned sine die. On January 3, 2013, she was renominated to the same office, and on February 14, 2013, her nomination was reported to the full Senate by voice vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She was confirmed by the full Senate by voice vote on the legislative day of March 22, 2013. She received her commission on March 26, 2013.

During her time on the District Court, she issued multiple rulings against the Trump administration.

Notable rulings

• On September 11, 2013, in American Meat Institute v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jackson declined to enjoin a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule preliminarily that required meatpackers to identify the animal's country of origin. She found that the rule likely did not violate the First Amendment.
• On September 5, 2014, in Depomed v. Department of Health and Human Services, Jackson ruled that the Food and Drug Administration had violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it failed to grant pharmaceutical company Depomed market exclusivity for its orphan drug, Gralise, despite the fact that Gralise met the statutory requirements for exclusivity under the Orphan Drug Act.
• On September 11, 2015, in Pierce v. District of Columbia, Jackson ruled that the D.C. Department of Corrections violated the rights of a deaf inmate under the Americans with Disabilities Act because jail officials failed to assess the inmate's need for accommodations when he first arrived at the jail.
• In April and June 2018, Jackson presided over two cases challenging the Department of Health and Human Services’ decision to terminate grants for teen pregnancy prevention programs two years early. Jackson ruled that the decision to terminate the grants early, without any explanation for doing so, was arbitrary and capricious.
• On August 15, 2018, in AFGE, AFL-CIO v. Trump, Jackson invalidated provisions of three executive orders that would have limited the time federal employee labor union officials could spend with union members, the issues that unions could bargain over in negotiations, and the rights of disciplined workers to appeal disciplinary actions.
• On November 23, 2018, Jackson held that 40 lawsuits stemming from the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which had been combined into a single multidistrict litigation, should be brought in Malaysia, not the United States.
• On September 4, 2019, in Center for Biological Diversity v. McAleenan, Jackson held that Congress had stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear non-constitutional challenges to the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security's decision to waive certain environmental requirements to facilitate construction of a border wall on the United States and Mexico border.
• On September 29, 2019, Jackson issued a preliminary injunction in Make The Road New York v. McAleenan, blocking an agency rule that would have expanded "fast-track" deportations without immigration court hearings for undocumented immigrants. Jackson found that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had violated the Administrative Procedure Act because its decision was arbitrary and capricious and the agency did not seek public comment before issuing the rule, which made Jackson set aside the rule.
• On November 25, 2019, Jackson issued a ruling in Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives v. McGahn in which the House Committee on the Judiciary sued Don McGahn, former White House Counsel for the Trump administration, to compel him to comply with the subpoena to appear at a hearing on its impeachment inquiry on issues of alleged obstruction of justice by the administration. McGahn declined to comply with the subpoena after U.S. President Donald Trump, relying on a legal theory of executive testimonial immunity, ordered McGahn not to testify. In a lengthy opinion, Jackson ruled in favor of the House Committee and held that senior-level presidential aides "who have been subpoenaed for testimony by an authorized committee of Congress must appear for testimony in response to that subpoena" even if the President orders them not to do so. Jackson rejected the administration's assertion of executive testimonial immunity by holding that "with respect to senior-level presidential aides, absolute immunity from compelled congressional process simply does not exist." According to Jackson, that conclusion was "inescapable precisely because compulsory appearance by dint of a subpoena is a legal construct, not a political one, and per the Constitution, no one is above the law." Jackson's use of the phrase "presidents are not kings" gained popular attention in subsequent media reporting on the ruling. The ruling has been appealed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Court of appeals service

On March 30, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Jackson to serve as a United States Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On April 19, 2021, her nomination was sent to the Senate. President Biden nominated Jackson to the seat vacated by Judge Merrick Garland, who retired on March 11, 2021, to become Attorney General. On April 28, 2021, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On May 20, 2021, her nomination was reported out of committee by a 13–9 vote. On June 10, 2021, cloture was invoked on her nomination by a vote of 52–46. On June 14, 2021, the United States Senate confirmed Jackson in a 53-44 vote. She received her judicial commission on June 17, 2021.

Community involvement

Jackson is a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services as well as the Harvard University's Board of Overseers and the Council of the American Law Institute. She also currently serves on the board of Georgetown Day School, the board of the D.C. Circuit Historical Society, and the U.S. Supreme Court Fellows Commission.

Jackson has served as a judge in several mock trials with the Shakespeare Theatre Company. In 2019, she joined a panel composed of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer and Judges Patricia Millett and Stephanos Bibas to hear a case based on The Oresteia. In 2017, Jackson and Judges Merrick Garland, David Tatel, Thomas Griffith, and Robert Wilkins heard a case based on Twelfth Night. In 2016, along with Justice Samuel Alito, then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Judges Thomas Griffith and Robert Wilkins, Jackson heard a case based on Romeo and Juliet. Jackson also presided over a mock trial, hosted by Drexel University's Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2018, "to determine if Vice President Aaron Burr was guilty of murdering" Alexander Hamilton.

Jackson regularly serves as a judge for the Historical Society of the District of Columbia's Mock Court Program, which brings D.C. high school students to the federal courthouse to present oral arguments in First and Fourth Amendment cases. In 2018, Jackson participated as a panelist at the National Constitution Center's town hall on the legacy of Alexander Hamilton.

Jackson has also spoken at various law schools. In 2017, Jackson presented at the University of Georgia School of Law's 35th Edith House Lecture. In 2020, Jackson gave the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lecture at the University of Michigan Law School and was honored at the University of Chicago Law School’s third annual Judge James B. Parsons Legacy Dinner, which was hosted by the school's Black Law Students Association. In 2016, Jackson served as a judge during Yale Law School's Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals competition.

Possible appointment to U.S. Supreme Court

On February 26, 2016, the National Law Journal reported that Obama administration officials were vetting Jackson as a potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March 2016, the Washington Post and the Associated Press confirmed that information, and Reuters reported that Jackson was one of five candidates interviewed as a potential nominee for the vacancy.

It has been speculated that President Joe Biden could nominate Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court should he have the opportunity to select a new justice during the 117th United States Congress.

In 1996, Jackson married Patrick G. Jackson, a surgeon and the twin brother of former-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's brother-in-law. They have two daughters.