and she has a long and very stellar academic trail, having graduated from harvard and harvard law school. then clerked on the supreme court. then was in private practice for a few years and then as i said became a maybe i didn t say, became a public defender. which is very important because biden has stressed that he wants to have a diversity, not just of demographics but of experience. and she represented indigent defendants accused of crimes, several of the members of the court are former prosecutors, but i don t think there has been anybody that has represented people that were accused of crimes since thurgood marshall and that s a long time ago. he was the first african american justice on the supreme court. so the other leading contender is leondra kruger. and she is a justice on the california supreme court. like ketanji brown jackson, she has stellar legal credentials. interestingly, she was hired by the republican solicitor general of the united states to be an assi
welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. it is thursday, january 27th. i m john berman with brianna keilar. just a few hours from now, the fight officially begins to fill the next vacancy on the nation s highest court. president biden and stephen breyer expected to officially announce breyer s retirement at the white house. obviously this has major historical and political implications. so here s a look at the supreme court vacancy by the numbers. 108 of the 115 u.s. justices have been white men. the other seven, two black men and five women. it s been 28 years since bill clinton and breyer showed off their running legs in short-shorts. just another reason to love the 90s. 28 years since then senator biden presided over briar s nomination. six years since former president obama announced now attorney general merrick garland to fill antonin scalia s seat. that didn t work out. 1,239 days since one of the most heated confirmation hearings i
President ronald reagan did. he promised during the campaign he would name the first woman to the bench and now president biden has pledged during his campaign that he would name a black woman to the bench. the leading contender i would say is probably ketanji brown jackson, who has been on the d.c. court of appeals for less than a year, but prior to that was a trial court judge, federal trial court judge for eight years. she served on the sentencing commission as vice chairman during the obama administration. and that was a time when with the assent of republicans and democrats, the commission dramatically reduced sentences for drug offenses. she is, i think, the great, great or great granddaughter of slaves. she is married to a surgeon and as one married to a surgeon, i think that s always a very good thing. and she is the mother of two or two daughters, i think,
Provision that s very broad to get a colleague s support. if a judge rewrites the law later because of notions about fairness or equity or common good, that unravels all of our work here in the congress. more importantly, american people should be able to read the law and know what it means. they shouldn t have to ask how a federal judge who disagrees with the law could reinterpret the words on that page. all of this leads to the conclusion as to why we must carefully examine federal judge s records, especially supreme court nominees. judge jackson has served as an assistant public defender. worked in private practice and served on the united states sentencing commission. she also serves as a federal district court judge from 2013 to 2021.
Undertook an election process that sought input from both parties. senator grassley and i met with the president who invited us to any nominees we care to do. at the end of the day, the president alone chose you. he s put his faith to deliver justice at the highest level of the court. i share that faith. in announcing your nomination, the president spoke to many reasons you deserve to sit on the high court. he noted the perspective you ll bring as a former mayor of the sentencing commission, the first justice since thurgood marshall, considerable criminal defense experience and the only, the second current justice to serve as a federal trial court judge. he also noted your upbringing and the fact that you come from a law enforcement family. yet despite that shared family experience, despite your record, we ve heard claims that you are, quote, soft on crime. these baseless charges are unfair. a conservative national review columnist called claims brought