The Supreme Court’s recent spate of rulings includes another distinct dissent penned by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. In the case of Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the issue at hand—a “straightforward question” from Justice Alito—revolves around whether an individual attempting to enter the U.S. from Mexico actually “arrives in the United States.”
During a book tour, Justice Jackson shared her perspective, stating: “I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues.”
However, relying solely on personal sentiments and expressions is insufficient when justices are addressing complex issues. Justice Jackson’s apparent lack of awareness in asserting her stance often leaves her dissents unsupported, even from her liberal counterparts, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
In her relatively short tenure on the Supreme Court since 2022, Justice Jackson has quickly surpassed her peers in crafting dissents. She has authored 33 dissents, while Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan have written 24 and 17, respectively, during the same period.
Notably, Justice Jackson has stood as the sole dissenter in several 8-1 decisions. This pattern underscores how her personal convictions on various topics frequently diverge from the overall consensus, including that of the Court’s liberal bloc.
But she’s also written seven solo dissents in 6-3 decisions, which means the feelings she insists upon sharing are not opinions to which her liberal colleagues wish to sign their names.
In today’s solo dissent, Justice Jackson argued that “the better course was to refrain from exercising certiorari jurisdiction in this case” about whether or not foreigners can claim to have “arrived in” the United States when they actually remain on the Mexican side of the Southern Border.
In fact, Justice Jackson’s dissents have now been negatively referenced in majority opinions and concurrences for their lack of thoughtfulness, understanding of the role of a justice, and overall judicial philosophy.
Recent critics include Justice Samuel Alito (“trivial at best,” “baseless and insulting,” “utterly irresponsible” in Louisiana v. Callais), Justice Amy Coney Barrett (“at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself” in Trump v. Casa), and even fellow liberal Justice Elena Kagan (“collapsing the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions” in Chiles v. Salazar).
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Her desire to go it alone instead of working with ideologically similar colleagues on a collaborative dissent — or to at least tone down the political rhetoric — indicates Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson does not care what even the liberals on the bench think of her opinions. (One can imagine, much to their chagrin!)
While KBJ’s lack of interest in building a coalition is not necessarily a threat to the conservative wing of the Court right now – in fact, it may work to their advantage for KBJ to be such an isolating figure – her insistence on remaining so outside the normal conduct and traditional role of a justice is dangerous to the overall future of the Court.
Increasingly, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is proving she was put on the Supreme Court to be a chaos agent, even as she accuses her colleagues of “spawning chaos” in her solo dissent in Callais.
America got a glimpse of what she would bring to the Court during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, when she famously refused to answer Senator Marsha Blackburn’s question, “What is a woman?”
But it’s becoming clear that Justice Jackson’s jurisprudence is so far outside anything resembling a basic traditional legal philosophy that even her fellow liberal justices are having to remind her what her job on the Court is, and what it is NOT.
We’re past wondering if she was the most appropriate pick to replace Justice Stephen Breyer and are now openly questioning her fitness to remain in a lifetime appointment with such opportunity to cause actual harm and erode the sanctity of the highest court in the land. While prominent liberal legal scholars and the liberal justices themselves have problems with Justice Jackson’s approach, left-wing politicians applaud her activism because they want the Court to behave more like a super legislature to provide cover for their radical agenda.
Calls to pack the Supreme Court were once dismissed as beyond the pale and merely considered election-year posturing. However, it has become alarmingly evident that Democrats WILL try to pack the Supreme Court as soon as they are back in power. James Carville foolishly said the quiet part out loud and then realized his mistake, telling Democrat candidates, “don’t run on it. Just do it.”
But the chorus from the Left to pack the Court is growing in number and intensity, causing even the Washington Post to caution against “threatening to subordinate judicial independence to the whims of a political party (that) befits a banana republic.”
The most terrifying thing is that Democrats want to pack the Court with Ketanji Brown Jacksons. One KBJ is problematic. Five would be a disaster.
The Rule of Law simply cannot survive a Supreme Court packed with Justice Jackson clones, and legal scholars of all stripes agree.
Michael Thielen is President and Executive Director of the Republican National Lawyers Association, www.rnla.org.
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