U.S. Supreme Court’s Ketanji Brown Jackson emerges as energetic questioner on first day

Reuters | Ketanji Brown Jackson settled into her role as the Supreme Court’s newest justice on Monday by posing frequent questions during arguments on her first day of hearing cases, as the top U.S. judicial body launched what promises to be a momentous new 9-month term.

The court, with a 6-3 conservative majority that has shown increasing assertiveness including in June rulings curtailing abortion access and expanding gun rights, heard about 3 hours of arguments in an important environmental case and a dispute among states over unclaimed property.

Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the court, asked more than 20 probing questions and pointed follow-ups, appearing to demand clarity from the lawyers arguing the 2 cases. She is the sixth woman ever to serve on the court. For the first time, 4 women serve together – Jackson, Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor – as well as two Black justices – Jackson and Clarence Thomas.

As the newest justice, Jackson sat on the far right of the bench in the ornate courtroom, next to conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She was confirmed by the Senate in April to replace now-retired Justice Stephen Breyer as one of the court’s three liberal members.

During her confirmation hearings last March, Jackson said she would bring to the Supreme Court her life experiences and perspectives including time as a judge, a court-appointed lawyer for criminal defendants who could not afford an attorney, a member of a federal commission on criminal sentencing and “being a Black woman, lucky inheritor of the civil rights dream.”