https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketanji_Brown_Jackson
Career Edit
Jackson with Justice Stephen Breyer
After law school, Jackson served as a law clerk to Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts from 1996 to 1997, then to Judge Bruce M. Selya of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1997 to 1998. She spent a year in private practice at the Washington, D.C. law firm Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin (now part of Baker Botts), then clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 to 2000.[7][17]
Jackson worked in private legal practice from 2000 to 2003, first at the Boston-based law firm Goodwin Procter from 2000 to 2002, then with Kenneth Feinberg at the law firm, now called Feinberg & Rozen LLP from 2002 to 2003.[18] From 2003 to 2005, she was an assistant special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission.[19] From 2005 to 2007, Jackson was an assistant federal public defender in Washington, D.C., where she handled cases before U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.[20] A Washington Post review of cases Jackson handled during her time as a public defender showed that "she won uncommon victories against the government that shortened or erased lengthy prison terms".[21] From 2007 to 2010, Jackson was an appellate specialist at Morrison & Foerster.[18][17]
U.S. Sentencing Commission Edit
On July 23, 2009, Barack Obama nominated Jackson to become vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission.[22] 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.[23][17] During her time on the Commission, it retroactively amended the Sentencing Guidelines to reduce the guideline range for crack cocaine offenses,[2] and enacted the "drugs minus two" amendment, which implemented a two offense-level reduction for drug crimes.[24]
District Court Edit
Jackson on the bench of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
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 retiring Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr.[25] Jackson was introduced at her December 2012 confirmation hearing by Republican Paul Ryan, a relative through marriage, who said "Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji's intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal."[10] On February 14, 2013, her nomination was reported to the full Senate by voice vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee.[26] She was confirmed by the full Senate by voice vote on March 22, 2013. She received her commission on March 26, 2013[17] and was sworn in by Justice Breyer in May 2013.[27]
During her time on the District Court, Jackson wrote multiple decisions adverse to the positions of the Trump administration. In her opinion ordering Trump's former White House counsel Donald McGahn to comply with a legislative subpoena, she wrote "presidents are not kings".[28] Jackson handled a number of challenges to executive agency actions that raised questions of administrative law. She also issued rulings in several cases that gained particular political attention.[29]
Bloomberg Law reported in spring 2021 that conservative activists were pointing to certain decisions by Jackson that had been reversed on appeal as a "potential blemish on her record".[30] In 2019, Jackson ruled that provisions in three Trump executive orders conflicted with federal employee rights to collective bargaining. Her decision was reversed unanimously by the D.C. Circuit. Another 2019 decision, involving a challenge to a Department of Homeland Security decision to expand the agency's definition of which noncitizens could be deported, was also reversed by the D.C. Circuit. Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, defended Jackson's record, saying Jackson "has written nearly 600 opinions and been reversed less than twelve times".[30]
Selected rulings Edit
In American Meat Institute v. U.S. Department of Agriculture (2013), Jackson rejected the meat packing industry's request for a preliminary injunction to block a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule requiring them to identify animals' country of origin. Jackson found that the rule likely did not violate the First Amendment.[31][32]
In Depomed v. Department of Health and Human Services (2014), 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. Jackson concluded that the Orphan Drug Act required the FDA to grant Gralise exclusivity.[33]
In Pierce v. District of Columbia (2015), 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 provide the inmate with reasonable accommodations, or to assess his need for reasonable accommodations, during his detention in 2012. Jackson held that "the District's willful blindness regarding" Pierce's need for accommodation and its half-hearted attempt to provide Pierce with a random assortment of auxiliary aids — and only after he specifically requested them — fell far short of what the law requires."[34]
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.[35] Jackson ruled that the decision to terminate the grants early, without any explanation for doing so, was arbitrary and capricious.[36]
In American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. Trump (2018), 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. Jackson concluded that the executive orders violated the right of federal employees to collectively bargain, as guaranteed by the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute.[37] In 2019, the D.C. Circuit, ruling that Judge Jackson had wrongly asserted jurisdiction, reversed and vacated her decision.[38][39]
In 2018, Jackson dismissed that 40 wrongful death and product liability lawsuits stemming from the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which had been combined into a single multidistrict litigation. Jackson held that under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, the suits should be brought in Malaysia, not the United States. The D.C. Circuit affirmed this ruling in 2020.[40][41][42][43]
In 2019, in Center for Biological Diversity v. McAleenan, Jackson held that Congress had, through the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, 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.[44]
In 2019, Jackson issued a preliminary injunction in Make The Road New York v. McAleenan, blocking a Trump administration rule that would have expanded expedited removal ("fast-track" deportations) without immigration court hearings for undocumented immigrants.[45] Jackson found that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because its decision was arbitrary and capricious and the agency did not seek public comment before issuing the rule.[46] In a 2–1 ruling in 2020, the D.C. Circuit reversed the entry of the preliminary injunction, ruling that the IIRIRA (by committing the matter to the executive branch's "sole and unreviewable discretion") precluded APA review of the decision.[47]
In 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.[48] 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."[49] 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."[49][50][51] Jackson's use of the phrase "presidents are not kings" gained popular attention in subsequent media reporting on the ruling.[52][53][54][55] In noting that Jackson took four months to resolve the case, including writing a 120 page opinion, The Washington Post wrote: "That slow pace contributed to helping Mr. Trump run out the clock on the congressional oversight effort before the 2020 election."[10] The ruling was appealed by the U.S. Department of Justice,[56] and the D.C. Circuit affirmed part of Jackson's decision nine months later in August 2020.[57] While the case remained pending, on June 4, 2021, McGahn testified behind closed doors under an agreement reached with the Biden administration.[58]
Court of Appeals Edit
Jackson in 2022
On March 30, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Jackson to serve as a United States circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.[59] On April 19, 2021, her nomination was sent to the Senate. President Biden nominated Jackson to the seat vacated by Judge Merrick Garland, who stepped down to become attorney general.[60]
On April 28, 2021, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.[61] During her confirmation hearing, Jackson was questioned about several of her rulings against the Trump administration.[62] On May 20, 2021, Jackson's nomination was reported out of committee by a 13–9 vote.[63] On June 10, 2021, cloture was invoked on her nomination by a vote of 52–46.[64] On June 14, 2021, the United States Senate confirmed Jackson in a 53–44 vote.[65] Republican senators Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham and Lisa Murkowski joined all Democrats in voting to confirm her nomination. She received her judicial commission on June 17, 2021.[66]
Jackson's first decision as a court of appeals judge invalidated a 2020 rule by the Federal Labor Relations Authority that had restricted the bargaining power of federal-sector labor unions.[67]
