On January 27, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement from the bench. In response, President Biden has promised to name a Black woman as Breyer’s successor. There are many women being named as potential picks, but two stand out as Biden’s frontrunners: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Leondra Kruger.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She clerked for Justice Breyer between 1999-2000, and has since worked for the United States Sentencing Commission and as an assistant federal public defender. President Obama nominated her as a Federal District Court judge in 2012, and in 2021 she became a Federal Appeals judge under President Biden. Notably, Judge Jackson has a record of favoring criminal justice reform. During her time at the United States Sentencing Commission, the Commission retroactively reduced sentences for many crack cocaine offenses, and cut sentences for most federal drug offenders.
As a District Judge for the District of Columbia, Judge Jackson has presided over multiple cases involving executive overreach. In Employees v. Trump (2018), Judge Jackson struck down three decrees made by President Trump in favor of federal workers and unions, whose collective bargaining abilities he had sought to limit. Vox reported that as an Appellate Court judge, Judge Jackson presided on a committee for investigating the January 6 Insurrection, which ruled that Congress could obtain certain White House records from the Trump administration. However, in Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn, Judge Jackson was criticized for her slow handling of the case, as the New York Times detailed, which ultimately allowed for President Trump’s legal team to run out the clock and avoid facing consequences, despite court rulings against him.
Justice Leondra Kruger is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law school, and clerked for former Justice John Paul Stevens. Her career includes acting as Solicitor General under the Obama administration and working for the state court, where she currently serves. In 2014, she was named to the California Supreme Court and has been dubbed by legal analysts, according to the New York Times, as “cautious and deliberate.”
This caution is reflected throughout her work as a judge. In the case of The People of California vs. Buza, Justice Kruger rejected a challenge to California’s Proposition 69, which requires that police must collect DNA samples of all individuals arrested for a felony offense. The vote was 4-3, with Justice Kruger joining her three conservative colleagues in their rejection, as she believed that the defendant was not the right person to challenge that law. Justice Kruger’s tendency to preserve existing law could make her a possible swing vote on the Supreme Court. However, because the new Democratic appointment would still leave liberal-leaning justices in the minority on the Supreme Court, either judge’s impact might be limited regardless.