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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Who Grew Up In Miami, Could Be Next US Supreme Court Justice

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - A woman who grew up in Miami and went to Palmetto Senior High School could be in the running to become the nation's next Supreme Court Justice.

News of Justice Stephen Breyer's expected retirement from the Supreme Court at the end of its current term has reignited questions of who will succeed him.

Biden has repeatedly pledged that if given the chance to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, he would nominate the first Black woman.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, who was born in D.C., was one of President Joe Biden's first picks for the federal judiciary as president and is considered to be the frontrunner for the Supreme Court.

The president selected Jackson to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, considered to be the nation's second most powerful court, in March 2021, and she was confirmed by the Senate in June.

Here is what she had to say during her confirmation hearing for that role.

"When you become a judge, you take an oath to look only at the law in deciding your cases, that you set aside your personal views about the circumstances, the defendants or anything else," she said.

Three Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted with all 50 Democrats to confirm Jackson.

WATCH: Brooke Shafer's Report On Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

 

Before joining the D.C. Circuit, Jackson was a U.S. district judge in the District of Columbia and vice-chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. At her confirmation hearing to the federal district court, Jackson was introduced by then-Congressman Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin who would go on to serve as House speaker before retiring in 2018. Ryan and Jackson are related by marriage.

"Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji's intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal. She is an amazing person," Ryan told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2012.

Jackson also worked as an assistant special counsel for the sentencing panel for two years, followed by two years as an assistant federal public defender. The judge has been hailed for her work as a former public defender, as judicial groups argue there is a dearth of professional diversity on the federal bench.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, she clerked for Breyer on the Supreme Court from 1999 to 2000.

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