Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – The Lovely One

The second day of the 40th Annual ABA White Collar Crime Conference in Miami began with a fireside chat between former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Ismail Ramsey and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The two recalled spending late nights working together on the Harvard Law Review, and it was a joy and honor to have a front seat to this reunion. The conversation ranged from the lighthearted to serious legal matters. Justice Jackson told stories about how her parents poured into her and taught her that anything was possible, about her love of acting and theater, and her newfound friendship with Justice Amy Coney Barrett (who threw Justice Jackson a Hamilton-themed welcome party to the Supreme Court).

There was a refreshing transparency to Justice Jackson’s comments as she provided a peek into some of the traditions of the Supreme Court, including that each justice shakes every other justice’s hand prior to hearing every argument and that, during judicial conferences to discuss cases, each justice is heard one-by-one in order of seniority. In response to a question, she identified Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case that established the Sixth Amendment right to counsel for indigent criminal defendants, as the case from legal history that she would like to have argued. (Sidenote: Arnold & Porter founding partner Abe Fortas was the person who did argue on behalf of Clarence Gideon in that case.) As a former public defender, she credited the case for leading to the rise of public defenders. Justice Jackson stated that Gideon himself wrote the original petition from jail and that she has an archival copy hanging in her office.

On weighty legal issues of the day, Justice Jackson, who sat on the Sentencing Commission, shared that she has long-been a proponent of rebuilding the Sentencing Guidelines from scratch. She also addressed the timely topic of presidential immunity; referencing her recent dissent in Trump v. United States, she shared her concern that “immunity is a principle engendering inequality.”

When asked about the diversity of the judiciary and its impact, Justice Jackson cited an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote that “the life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience.” Justice Jackson believes that it instills confidence in the institution when judges come from different walks of life. Justice Jackson’s life exemplifies brilliance, possibilities, hope, strength, and service. It was no surprise that as the conversation ended, many in the packed conference hall shared that Justice Jackson’s comments had been a true inspiration and flocked to buy her memoir, “The Lovely One,” titled for the translation of her name, Ketanji Onyika.

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