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- President Joe Biden is set to nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill retiring Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat. If confirmed, Jackson will be the first Black woman to be a Supreme Court justice. [CNN]
- Biden made a formal announcement of Jackson’s nomination in a press conference Friday. “Judge Jackson is an exceptionally qualified nominee as well as an historic nominee, and the Senate should move forward with a fair and timely hearing and confirmation,” the White House said in a statement. [The White House]
- Jackson, 51, currently sits on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and is considered to be a liberal jurist, although she garnered some Republican support during her nomination last year to the Court of Appeals. She’ll face a somewhat challenging nomination as conservative legislators and interest groups attempt to paint her as a radical and foil her nomination. [NYT]
- Jackson, in addition to being the fifth woman and the third Black person to serve in the nation’s highest court, would be the first justice in decades to have significant experience in criminal defense. Like many other justices, she graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked under a Supreme Court justice — Breyer, actually — but her time as a federal public defender sets her apart as well. [Axios / Hans Nichols and Sam Baker]
- She also served as vice chair of the United States Sentencing Committee, which was created to address sentencing disparities and increase transparency and proportionality in sentencing. In 2013, Jackson started her career in the federal judiciary as a DC trial judge. [Vox / Ian Millhiser]