U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has publicly condemned her conservative colleagues for using emergency order in favor of the Trump administration. She gave an hour-long speech at Yale Law University to speak about the issue.
Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks out against her conservative colleagues at the U.S. Supreme Court
Jackson spoke for an hour at Yale Law School to condemn actions driven by her conservative colleagues. She pointed to about two dozen court orders issued last year that helped further President Donald Trump’s agenda regarding immigration, federal funding and more, according to the Associated Press.
“The president of the United States, though he may be harmed in an abstract way, he certainly isn’t harmed if what he wants to do is illegal,” she said.
Jackson referred to the order as “back-of-the-envelope, first-blush impressions of the merits of the legal issue.” In the past, she said, the U.S. Supreme Court has avoided stepping into cases early on in the legal process.
“There is value in avoiding having the court continually touching the third rail of every divisive policy issue in American life,” she said. “In recent years, the Supreme Court has taken a decidedly different approach to addressing emergency stay applications. It has been noticeably less restrained, especially with respect to pending cases that involve controversial matters.”
Jackson shared her decision to publicly speak on the issue in order to be “a catalyst for change.” She also said there have been conversations regarding emergency orders among the justices. Jackson is often joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on divisive issues.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor has also publicly spoken about emergency orders
Sotomayor issued a similar stance during an event at the University of Alabama last week. She later gave a public apology to Justice Brett Kavanaugh for referring to his family during a debate.
“At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate,” she said, as reported by The Guardian. “I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”
In September, Kavanaugh voted to lift an order barring federal immigration authorities from stopping people based on race, language or occupation. Sotomayor publicly condemned Kavanaugh’s decision.
“This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour,” she said.