WASHINGTON – Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be sworn in as an aide to the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon when Judge Stephen Brier’s retirement becomes official, the court said Wednesday. She will be the first black woman to serve in the Supreme Court.
Jackson will be sworn in at the Supreme Court ceremony on Thursday, the court said. Chief Justice John Roberts will take the constitutional oath, while Breyer, for whom she serves, will take the judicial oath. A judge at the Federal Court of Appeal in Washington, which serves to withdraw justice, Jackson was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan vote in April.
Breyer, 83, told President Biden in a letter that his retirement would take effect at noon on Thursday, ending his nearly 28-year term in court.
Breyer leaves the Supreme Court at the end of a term in which there is no shortage of hit cases, the most recent of which was his decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as decisions extending gun rights for the first time in a decade and in benefit of religious rights.
The court is expected to announce its two remaining opinions – a dispute over the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and a challenge to the Biden administration’s attempt to end the so-called “stay in Mexico” policy Thursday morning and then a summer break.
“It has been a great honor for me to participate as a judge in efforts to maintain our constitution and the rule of law,” Breyer told Mr Biden in a letter Wednesday.
Appointed to the Supreme Court by former President Bill Clinton in 1994, Breyer announced in January his plans to step down at the end of his term, giving Mr Biden the opportunity to make his first appointment to the Supreme Court. The president announced Jackson’s candidacy in late February, and the Senate approved her nomination less than two months later.
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