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Live updates: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing
As senators make their opening statements establishing arguments for and in opposition to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s affirmation, the decide’s private historical past and authorized profession have been entrance and middle.
Listed below are some key issues to find out about Jackson:
The decide was born within the nation’s capital however grew up within the Miami space. She was a member of the controversy workforce at Miami Palmetto Senior Excessive College earlier than incomes each her undergraduate diploma and legislation diploma at Harvard.
She additionally beforehand clerked for retiring Supreme Court docket Justice Stephen Breyer and served as a federal public defender in Washington — an expertise that her backers say is becoming, given Biden’s dedication to placing extra public defenders on the federal bench.
She was additionally a commissioner on the US Sentencing Fee and served on the federal district courtroom in DC, as an appointee of President Barack Obama, earlier than Biden elevated her to the DC Circuit final yr.
Jackson thanked Breyer when she was offered as Biden’s nominee final month.
“Justice Breyer, particularly, not solely gave me the best job that any younger lawyer may ever hope to have, however he additionally exemplified on daily basis, in each method, {that a} Supreme Court docket justice can carry out on the highest degree of ability and integrity, whereas additionally being guided by civility, grace, pragmatism and generosity of spirit,” Jackson mentioned. “Justice Breyer, the members of the Senate will resolve if I fill your seat, however please know that I may by no means fill your sneakers.”
At her 2021 affirmation listening to for the appellate courtroom, she linked her household’s professions — her dad and mom labored in public faculties — to her resolution to work as a public defender.
“I come from a background of public service. My dad and mom had been in public service, my brother was a police officer and (was) within the army,” she mentioned on the time, “and being within the public defenders’ workplace felt very very like the chance to assist with my expertise and abilities.”
Former Home Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, is a relative by marriage and launched her on the 2013 listening to for her district courtroom nomination.
Ryan additionally congratulated Jackson when she was nominated.
“Janna and I are extremely glad for Ketanji and her whole household. Our politics might differ, however my reward for Ketanji’s mind, for her character, and for her integrity, is unequivocal,” Ryan said.
On the White Home occasion for her nomination, Jackson famous that an uncle was beforehand given a life sentence on drug prices, a difficulty of which she hasn’t beforehand spoken about publicly.
“You might have learn that I’ve one uncle who obtained caught up within the drug commerce and acquired a life sentence,” Jackson mentioned. “That’s true, however legislation enforcement additionally runs in my household. Along with my brother, I had two uncles who served a long time as law enforcement officials, certainly one of whom turned the police chief in my hometown of Miami, Florida.”
In 2008, when Jackson was in personal apply and properly earlier than she turned a decide, Jackson referred her uncle’s file to WilmerHale, a legislation agency that handles quite a few clemency petitions, in accordance with a spokesperson for the agency.
The agency submitted the petition on Brown’s behalf on October 7, 2014, and Obama commuted his sentence on November 22, 2016. In response to the agency, Jackson had “no additional involvement within the matter” after making the referral. Jackson’s chambers mentioned she would decline touch upon the difficulty.
“I’m standing right here as we speak by the grace of God as testomony to the love and assist that I’ve acquired from my household,” Jackson added when nominated.
Learn extra about Jackson’s private historical past and authorized report right here.