Ketanji Brown Jackson

On February 26, 2016, the National Law Journal reported that Obama administration officials were vetting Jackson as a potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March 2016, the Washington Post and the Associated Press confirmed that information, and Reuters reported that Jackson was one of five candidates interviewed as a potential nominee for the vacancy.

On September 20, 2012, President Obama nominated Jackson to serve as a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, to the seat vacated by Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. who retired on November 18, 2011. On January 2, 2013, her nomination was returned to the President, due to the sine die adjournment of the Senate. On January 3, 2013, she was renominated to the same office. On February 14, 2013, her nomination was reported to the full Senate by voice vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She was confirmed by voice vote on the legislative day of March 22, 2013. She received her commission on March 26, 2013.

On July 23, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to become Vice Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The United States Senate confirmed Jackson by unanimous consent on February 11, 2010. She succeeded Michael Horowitz, who served from 2003 until 2009. Jackson served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission until 2014. During Jackson’s time on the Sentencing Commission, the Commission amended the Sentencing Guidelines to reduce the guideline range for crack cocaine offenses and made the reduction retroactive, and it enacted the “drugs minus two” amendment, which implemented a two offense-level reduction for drug crimes.

Jackson worked in private legal practice from 1998 until 1999 and again from 2000 until 2003. From 2003 until 2005, she served as an assistant special counsel to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where she drafted proposed amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Booker. From 2005 until 2007, Jackson represented indigent criminal appellants in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as an assistant federal public defender. From 2007 to 2010, Jackson was an appellate litigator at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster. During her time at Morrison & Foerster, Jackson was counsel of record on Supreme Court amicus briefs in notable cases, such as Arizona v. Gant, on behalf of National Association of Federal Defenders, and Boumediene v. Bush, on behalf of former federal judges.

In 1996, Jackson married surgeon Patrick G. Jackson. They have two daughters. Jackson is related by marriage to former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan. Her husband is the twin brother of Ryan's brother-in-law.

Jackson (née Brown) was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida. Her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, are an attorney and retired school principal, respectively. Jackson attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School from 1984 until 1988, where she was a national oratory champion. Her parents still reside in Miami. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude in government in 1992 from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor degree cum laude in 1996 from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Jackson has served as a law clerk for three federal judges, including U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Patti B. Saris and U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya. She clerked for Associate Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 until 2000.

Ketanji Brown Jackson (born September 1970) is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In 2016, she was reportedly interviewed as one of Barack Obama's potential nominees for the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia.