Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first black woman on the Supreme Court on Thursday, just minutes after Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement took effect.
Jackson, who is 51 years old, was sworn in just after noon, two hours after the Supreme Court gave its last two opinions of a very important term. Her two daughters and her husband Patrick, who is the head of general surgery at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, also came to the ceremony.
Breyer, for whom Jackson once worked as a clerk, and Chief Justice John Roberts gave Jackson the Constitutional and Judicial oaths, which every new justice has to take.
In the first, given by Roberts, Jackson swore to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." bear true faith and allegiance to the same... freely accept this duty without any doubts or plans to get out of it... and that I will do a good job and be honest while in office."
Moments later, Jackson swore to Breyer that she "will administer justice without regard to persons and do equal right to the poor and the rich, and that [she] will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon" her.
“All the members of the court, I’m pleased to welcome Justice Jackson,” Roberts said immediately after she completed the oaths and became the 116th person to become a Supreme Court justice.
Jackson, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, was approved by the Senate in April to replace Breyer. Three Republicans voted in favor of her nomination, along with all 50 Democrats.
Jackson, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, was confirmed to replace Breyer in April by a vote of 53-47 in the Senate, with three Republicans voting with the Democrats.
Jackson was first put forward for the job by President Biden at the end of February. At the time, he said that she had "extraordinary qualifications."
After getting his law degree from Harvard in 1996, Jackson worked in the legal field in many different ways, including as a clerk for several federal judges. She worked as an assistant federal public defender from 2005 to 2007. During that time, she was the lawyer for Afghan terror suspect Khi Ali Gul, who was being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Not long after that, President Barack Obama put Jackson on the DC District Court, where she gave many sentences in child pornography cases. During her confirmation hearings, these sentences were closely looked at because some Republicans said they were too soft.
During Jackson's time on the district court, she also gave Edgar Maddison Welch four years in prison for opening fire in a busy DC pizzeria while "investigating" "Pizzagate," a strange conspiracy theory that said Hillary Clinton was behind a child sex ring.
Biden put Jackson's name forward to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals at the beginning of 2021. She was also given the job with support from both parties.
Jackson was one of three judges who ruled against former President Donald Trump when he tried to keep documents from the House committee looking into last year's Capitol riot. This happened while she was on the DC Circuit.
Jackson is the fourth Supreme Court Justice to come from the DC Circuit. Thomas, Roberts, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh are the other three. Former Chief Justice Warren Burger and the late Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg also came from the DC Circuit and joined the court in the past.
Her joining the Court does not change the fact that there are currently six conservative justices and three liberal justices.
The next term of the Supreme Court will start on October 3, and the new justice will be sworn in at some point in the fall.
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