Walking the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said, “I’m still just so floored being in this building.”
In 2022 Jackson was named by President Joe Biden to the Supreme Court. In the two years since, the court’s newest and youngest member has become the most prolific questioner from the Bench. She said she hasn’t changed since she was a district court judge. “I have a lot of questions!” she laughed. “I think it’s harder, obviously, when you’re one of nine than when you’re all alone. And there is an adjustment period that I think had to happen from my perspective. I wasn’t doing anything different. And maybe I should have been! But I have questions, and we have a very complicated legal system. And these issues are hard.”
CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell with Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
CBS News
In her first interview since being confirmed to the Supreme Court, Jackson talked with “CBS Evening News” host and managing editor Norah O’Donnell about some of the court’s most divisive decisions, as well as her own journey to becoming the first Black Woman to sit on the nation’s highest court.
Here are some highlights from Jackson’s interview.
On presidential immunity
One of the most controversial decisions by the Roberts Court this term was in Trump v. United States, a case which has major implications regarding oversight of the chief executive and the powers wielded from the Oval Office.
The former president was indicted by a federal grand jury for his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, including spreading knowingly false claims of “election fraud,” and leading the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol intended to obstruct the certification of the Electoral College ballots.
Trump appealed to the District Court in D.C. to dismiss the charges, claiming that he possessed “absolute immunity” from prosecution for actions taken in his capacity as president. The District Court denied his motion, which the D.C. Circuit affirmed. However, on July 1, the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, that a president can be immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts” taken during their time in office.
Jackson, who joined those in opposition, wrote in her dissent that the opinion by the Court’s conservative members “breaks new and dangerous ground. Departing from the traditional model of individual accountability, the majority has concocted something entirely different: a Presidential accountability model that creates immunity—an exemption from criminal law—applicable only to the most powerful official in our Government. … In the end, then, under the majority’s new paradigm, whether the President will be exempt from legal liability for murder, assault, theft, fraud, or any other reprehensible and outlawed criminal act will turn on whether he committed that act in his official capacity, such that the answer to the immunity question will always and inevitably be: It depends.”
Jackson told O’Donnell, “I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same.”
As the case was returned to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, special counsel Jack Smith issued a superseding indictment of Trump, from a newly-impaneled grand jury, reiterating the four criminal charges in the case, but narrowing the scope of evidence. Trump accused the special counsel of election interference and demanded that the charges be dropped.
Asked if she was prepared for the 2024 election results to wind up before the Supreme Court, Jackson replied, “As prepared as anyone can be! … I think there are legal issues that arise out of the political process. And so, the Supreme Court has to be prepared to respond if that should be necessary.”
On ethics at the Supreme Court
Over the past decade there has been a crisis of faith in the nation’s highest court – from the partisanship that has colored the confirmation process, to ideologically-pitched decisions (such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade), to revelations about undisclosed gifts and luxury trips accepted by justices from wealthy donors.
According to a recent survey from Pew Research, less than half of Americans (47%) say they have a favorable view of the Supreme Court; 51% have an unfavorable opinion. The numbers are even more skewed when divided by party affiliation, with Democrats holding a 24% favorable view of the Court, vs. 73% among Republicans.
Justice Clarence Thomas, for one, has faced backlash for failing to disclose millions of dollars’ worth of travel and lodging from conservative donors, including billionaire Harlan Crow. (Thomas said he did not believe he had to report the travel under the court’s rules at the time.)
Asked if she felt it was appropriate for Thomas to have accepted an estimated $4,000,000 in trips, travel, and gifts over the past two decades, Jackson replied, “I’m not going to comment on other justices’ interpretations of the rules or what they’re doing.”
Jackson herself has disclosed receiving about $25,000 in gifts since joining the court (including Beyoncé concert tickets and a flower display from Oprah), as well as an advance of nearly $900,000 for her memoir.
Asked about her personal code of ethics, Jackson said, “I follow the rules, whatever they are, with respect to ethical obligations. And it’s important in my view to do so. It really boils down to impartiality. That’s what the rules are about. People are entitled to know if you’re accepting gifts as a judge, so that they can evaluate whether or not your opinions are impartial.”
President Joe Biden has proposed several reforms for the Supreme Court, from term limits, to a law requiring justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
“A binding code of ethics is pretty standard for judges,” said Jackson. “And so, I guess the question is, ‘Is the Supreme Court any different?’ And I guess I have not seen a persuasive reason as to why the court is different than the other courts.”
She said she would support an enforcement mechanism on a SCOTUS code of ethics (the current rules do not have one). “I am considering supporting it as a general matter. I’m not going to get into commenting on particular policy proposals. But from my perspective, I don’t have any problem with an enforceable code.”
On the meaning of her name
The title of Jackson’s new memoir, “Lovely One” (to be published Tuesday by Random House), has a special meaning for her – it’s the translation of her name.
“My aunt was in the Peace Corps in Africa when I was born,” she said. “My parents really wanted to honor our heritage, and asked her to send them a list of African names.”
Among them: Ketanji Onyika (her middle name), which translates as Lovely One.
On her perseverance
Jackson’s parents, John and Ellery Brown, who grew up in the segregated South, had high hopes for their daughter, whom they raised in a middle class household in Miami.
“I was born within five years of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act,” she said. “So, they were like, ‘Here’s our opportunity to make sure that our daughter can do all the things that we didn’t get to do!’ My parents had raised me to believe that I could do anything I wanted to do. That was my way of thinking about myself.”
She said her parents taught her to persevere: “My mother used to say, ‘Have you seen this being done before? Has anybody ever done this? Well, if they have, then you can do it, too.’ And that was the mindset that they really drilled into me—you keep going.”
That sense of perseverance was also instilled in her through a favorite poem, “The Ladder of St. Augustine” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which taught the value of hard work: The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night. “That’s, like, my favorite summary of how I felt about work,” she said. “I was the person who was going to toil upward in the night, always.”
A natural orator, in high school she was a national speech and debate champion, with her sights on a career as a judge, declaring, “I want to eventually have a judicial appointment.”
“I had forgotten all about that, wanting to have a judicial appointment, but there it is, in my high school yearbook!” she laughed.
A Harvard Law graduate, Jackson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and later worked as a federal public defender. (Jackson is the first public defender to sit on the Supreme Court.)
Asked about becoming the first Black female justice, Jackson said her story – one of breaking though barriers – was becoming less and less exceptional. “Which is really what progress means, when you go from never having seen or done this thing before, to seeing someone do it,” she said. “And then it’s happening more often. And then you feel like, ‘We’ve progressed. And it’s wonderful!'”
Watch more of Norah O’Donnell’s interview with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on “Person to Person,” streaming on Thursday, Sept. 5, at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS News 24/7 and Paramount+.
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