Washington, DC (Feb. 25, 2022) – NACDL celebrates the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman Associate Justice to the Supreme Court. While this historic nomination will not immediately remedy the many profound disparities in the composition of our judiciary, Judge Brown Jackson will bring lived experience not only as a highly qualified trial and appellate judge, but also as a Black woman and as a former Assistant Federal Public Defender who has practiced in the trenches of the criminal legal system in the age of mass incarceration. NACDL commends the long-awaited and historic nomination of an attorney who, like the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, chose to defend the individual liberties and freedoms embedded in the Constitution. Having experienced the realities and brutalities of the criminal legal system, she is poised to give life to what otherwise would be abstract parchment principles.
