Fresh Air - SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Gets Personal

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson talks with Tonya Mosley about her teen years, her time as a public defender, and the poem she keeps in her office. Her new memoir is called Lovely One.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown Jackson. She's written a new memoir that gives us a rare glimpse into her legal mind, detailing her life and the experiences that led her to becoming the first Black woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2022, Jackson spoke more than any other justice during her first year. She's also authored several solo dissents at the heart of the nation's culture wars, in defense of labor unions,

affirmative action, the court's approach to abortion-related cases, voting rights, and immigration law. This summer, Justice Jackson gave a blistering dissent to the court's opinion to grant Donald Trump partial immunity from prosecution, arguing that the majority's decision poses a fundamental threat to American democracy and the rule of law, essentially creating a new power for presidents. Her new memoir is titled Lovely One, which is the meaning of her name, Katanji Onika, an African name that her aunt suggested her parents choose to express her pride and African heritage. Justice Jackson starts off her memoir with a landmark case

that has been a guiding light for her, a Supreme Court dissent from 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation under the separate but equal doctrine. The lone dissenter on the court was Justice John Marshall Harlan, who argued, More than 120 years later, Justice Jackson was sworn in using Harlan's Bible, symbolically connecting her to his legacy of dissent against racial segregation. My conversation with Justice Jackson today is focused on her path to becoming a justice. Her rise through the legal profession ranks as a Black woman with an uncommon

name, a mother and wife striving to reconcile the demands of a high-profile career, and how her experiences as a public defender and federal judge have informed her role on the Supreme Court. As the court rules dictate, Justice Jackson and I will not be talking about past or present Supreme Court cases, the upcoming presidential election, or any other political matters. And with that, Justice Katonji Brown Jackson, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Well, Justice Jackson, one of the things we can talk about as part of this discussion are your recent written opinions. So I'd like to start there. In a six to three majority, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer that without immunity, presidents might be deterred from performing their duties for fear of future prosecution, and that also no former president

has ever faced criminal prosecution for acts in our history as a country. And as part of your written dissent, you were vehemently against that. You said basically that you had grave concerns about this. What were your biggest is so magnificent is that the justices get to actually explain their votes. We are the one branch of government in which that is the standard. And so I did write a dissent, and I also joined Justice Sotomayor's dissent in describing the reasons that I was mostly concerned about the majority's view. And I guess sort of a bird's eye view of my dissent was the concern that we have a criminal justice system that treats everyone the same in terms of the defenses that can be made and the statements that can be made and the way in which a person has to follow the law and the procedures that apply. And as I explained in the opinion, I was concerned about a ruling that would carve out a special set of procedures, circumstances for former presidents.

Chief Justice Roberts characterized the ruling as relatively narrow. But in your dissent, you say that you don't feel that having different rules for one person is really democratic. Well, I think it's a matter of fundamental principle in our constitutional scheme that no one is above the law and that the rule of law in which a president, while in office, can behave in ways that violate standard criminal law and procedure, I guess I was concerned and I say that I was concerned that that sets up a circumstance in which the rule of law is not applying consistently. And therefore, some of the foundational principles of our nation, at least in my view, were not being adhered to. As you mentioned, being able to speak and explain your reasoning and to give dissent is a fundamental part of the Supreme Court, and it is what makes it different. But you've also spoken more than any other justice. And I wanted to know from you, was that intentional? Or were these particular cases that were before the court at the start of your time, so compelling that it required you to be so vocal,

right from the start? I think it might have been a confluence of various factors. One is that I had been a judge for quite a while at a lower level of the federal system, one in which I was the only judge in my courtroom and had a lot of autonomy, a lot of control over hearings and could ask as many questions as I wanted and could go as long as I wanted. And I think it was difficult to make the transition to a panel of nine when you're coming from a culture in which you basically run the show. So I think that was part of it. And I think the of the differences between the court now and then is that we had comparatively fewer of these kinds of cases. And so I don't know whether it was just the thought that I wanted to make sure that my views were accounted for and my questions were answered in very important cases that the court had taken the first year that I arrived.

I want to go back to your confirmation hearings in 2022. In your opening statements, you laid out your commitment to supporting and defending the Constitution, and many interpreted that as words to mean that you were an originalist, meaning that you interpreted the Constitution consistent with its original meaning. In your book, you clarify that, that you have developed more of a methodology to ensure that you are impartial. Can you say more about that methodology? I don't have a constitutional philosophy as much as a methodology. And it is one that really focuses pretty intently on the role of the court in our constitutional democracy. It's the understanding that the court has certain powers, that its powers are limited, that we are one of three branches, that the other branches have

certain spheres of authority that have to be respected. And so, as I said at my confirmation hearing, I am trying in every case to stay in my lane and not overstep into making policy or becoming a legislator or doing things that are properly in the other branches. I'm also really setting aside my personal views. How do you do that? Well, you know, it's something that you learn in law school. Litigators, I think, would be familiar with the concept of representing a client zealously, regardless of what you think of their particular circumstances. That's what you're hired to do. It's something that I practiced as a law clerk for all three levels of the federal system. I clerked for a district court judge, a court of appeals judge, and the Supreme Court justice.

And as a law clerk, you have to divorce your own view of the case from your obligation to draft an opinion in your justice's voice and to further their position. So you develop an ability to set aside your views and to look only at what the law requires. And I think that's crucial for a judge who is pledged to rule without fear or favor and make a determination that is neutral and just. And so what it means, I think, is that there will be cases, there are times in which I might vote in ways that people would find surprising, given the president who appointed me or what they might think of my own views of a case or my own views generally. But that's because I'm doing what it is I have pledged to do and that I believe is my duty, which is to follow the law.

You have so much personal experience and professional experience that allows you to see the world in ways that maybe others have not been able to see a full view of the world. Senator Cory Booker brought this up during the Senate confirmation hearings. He talked for, I think, almost 20 minutes directly at you, talking to you, not only about what was happening in the moment, because during your confirmation hearing, you had senators who were asking you all sorts of questions like, can you define what is a woman and are babies racist? And those were highly unusual things to ask a nominee. And on the other side of that, he also talked about how your experience primes you to be the best person to take that role. After he spoke, there were tears in your eyes.

What was going through your mind when he was talking to you? Well, that was a pretty special moment in the hearing. And I was exhausted at that point. If I recall correctly, this was toward the end of the second full day of hearings. And each of the senators had had many rounds of questioning. And Senator Booker decided to dedicate his time not to ask me any questions, but to essentially attempt to lift me up through his words. And so I felt a lot of relief and gratitude in the moment. And I think he said something like, I'm not going to let anybody steal my joy over this moment. And it was just so moving to me.

And I found out afterwards to many, many other people who felt uplifted and seen through that exchange. You mentioned how it was just a rigorous process. I mean, you say, I think it was on the second day. I think it was at the end. There was a little bit of a break. One of your former Harvard classmates, Senator Ted Cruz, asked you several questions, including your sentencing record and child pornography cases, claiming that you had given sentences that were below what prosecutors recommend. And there was all of this talk about that, and that was used. How did you prepare yourself? I'm sure that you had to go through all of what you expected you might come across and what you might face during those confirmation hearings. I was very well prepared. The And so I had a sense of what

I might be asked. I mean, I've been a district court judge for a long time. So certainly my record as a judge was going to be probed as a part of the hearing. I think I might have been surprised by the angle of some of the questions or the suggestion that I was doing or had done something untoward with respect to my sentences. I mean, I was on the sentencing Commission. I know the guidelines much better than most people, and the way in which sentencing is done is sort of my area of expertise. So I think I was a little surprised at some of the representations of how the sentencing process works or what I had done in a particular case to suggest that I was, you know, sentencing inappropriately. In that speech that Senator Cory Booker gave at your hearings, he referenced former federal judge and civil rights activist Constance Baker Motley.

She was the first black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court. When did you first learn about her? Judge Motley was appointed to the court in the 60s, I believe. And this is the court in the Southern District of New York. And I was born in 1970. And when I was in late elementary school, early middle school, I came across an article about her. In Essence magazine, all this. In Essence or Ebony, one of the black magazines that my parents subscribed to. And gosh, I mean, it was such an eye-opener for me in part because I learned that we share a birthday,

September 14th. We were born on exactly the same day, 49 years apart. And, you know, it was just amazing to see this woman who was a lawyer, and I had at that point wanted or thought I wanted to be a lawyer. My father went back to law school when I was four years old, and we lived on the campus of the University of Miami Law School, which is where he went. And so this notion of studying law and being a lawyer had always been with me. When I was a little girl, I would sit at the kitchen table with my coloring books, and my dad would sit with his law journals and law books, and we would work together. And he'd ask you questions. And he'd ask you questions. And he'd ask me questions.

You know, he would tell me what was going on in the books. And it was really a bonding moment for me, but also some of my earliest memories of what I might do in the world is be a lawyer. And so here we had this woman who was a lawyer and who had gone on to be a judge. And the thought of being a judge just kind of planted in my mind. And it was something I guess I'd always wanted to do. And this was also around the time when Justice O'Connor had been appointed to the court, to the Supreme Court. So now we had a woman judge on the Supreme Court. And I just remember those things being very motivational for me early on. Your father, as you mentioned,

had gone back to school to study law. He was an African American studies teacher in high school. And you had Essence magazines and Ebony magazines because one of the things that was a rule in your household was that you really couldn't watch all the programming that was on television. If it was a white-centered program, your family actually forbade you from watching it. Well, they didn't want me to watch it. They didn't turn it on. What kinds of stuff could you watch? Well, I watched a lot of educational shows. My parents were both teachers when I was born, and I was born in Washington, D.C.

And just to back up a little bit, my parents grew up in Miami, Florida, in a time of segregation. They both went to historically black colleges, different colleges. They had gone to the same black high school in Miami and then went to college and then went like so many other black people of the era, this is the civil rights era, to Washington, D.C. So they come to D.C. and it's amazing how many other people of my generation I meet who say I too was born in Washington, D.C. Because my parents were there. Yes, it's like it drew all of these. So wait, were they there for college? No. They were there for their jobs.

They were there for jobs. So my mother went to Tuskegee University in Alabama and my dad went to North Carolina Central. And when they graduated, they decided to get married and move to Washington, D.C. And that's where I was born. And they were both public school teachers at that time. But, you know, my father decided he wanted to go to law school. He was a history

teacher at Ballou High School here in D.C. And he just thought, you know, all of these interesting queries were something that he wanted to study further. And he thought being a lawyer would be a great way to continue with the sort of civil rights era movement themes that they had engaged in. And so I was born at this time, this very, very pivotal time in American history. I was a first inheritor of Dr. Martin Luther King's dream that, you know, if the civil rights movement and if Dr. Martin Luther King presented America with a metaphorical check, come do, my generation was the first. We reaped the first installment. for my parents, you know, who were now young people with a baby coming of age in this really sort of time of opportunity after being so limited in their upbringing. They wanted me to do all of the activities that they had been restricted in doing, but they also felt pretty strongly that it was important to shore up my own self-esteem.

Having grown up in a society in which there was so much negative imagery and messaging about African Americans, they were worried that that would undermine my ability to perform in white spaces. And so they carefully monitored what I watched and worked on the inputs. Our guest today is Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR.

Vital international stories every day. This message comes from Wondery. Kill list is a true story of how one journalist ended up in a race against time to warn those on the list whose lives were in danger. Follow kill list wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from Wondery. Find out how the NYPD transformed into one of the world's most powerful police forces. From Wondery and Crooked Media with Push Black, this is Empire City. Follow Empire City on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You describe how you went to all white schools. You were considered kind of the brainy black girl, but you were very popular, involved in all the activities, as you mentioned, speech and debate and theater and most likely to succeed.

You felt a lot of pride in yourself, but also isolation. And one way that it exhibited itself was nobody ever asked you for a date, Justice. Well, there were a handful of us in the kinds of classes in my kind of high school community, people of color, but it was a predominantly white school. And as you say, I was popular. I was the student body president three years in a row. So I, you know, had a lot of friends and people who liked me, but no dates, which got to be a little bit of an issue my senior year, because as student body president, one of the things you're responsible for is planning the prom. And I wasn't going to go until a friend of mine who was a junior

said, who are you going to go to prom with? And I was like, no one. And he was like, well, why don't I take you? Why don't we go together? So I went with him just so I could, you know, go and not be totally left out of an activity that I was planning. But it was not easy to be a high school student and feeling like, you know, everybody else is dating and people have crushes and not being a part of that part of the culture was a little challenging. I think it's something that many Black women, Black young women can relate to if they're in all white spaces. Which makes you meeting your husband such a wonderful story to read in the book, because you all met at Harvard. We did. You were a sophomore. And you tell this funny story, which you have to tell, about him being a twin. scenario. My husband and I are in a class. And, you know, we've been in this is the fall of my sophomore year.

And he's a junior. He's a year ahead of me, which is important because I didn't know him at all because we weren't in the same class. And I didn't know that he was an identical twin. So I am in this class and he's cute. He's sitting behind me. He's chatting with me and tapping on my shoulder and doing silly things. And afterwards, we start to develop a friendship talking about the material. And he would walk me to my next class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And then on Tuesday and Thursday, I thought I saw him in our government class. And I would lean down the row and wave and he would like roll his eyes like, who is this lady? And I thought, this is kind of weird. Like, why would this guy be so nice to me on some days and not on the others? And I told my roommates about it and they were like, leave him alone. He's crazy. You don't want to be with a crazy person. And so on one of the nice days, I said, you know, I'm going to confront him.

And so I went up to him and I said, you know, why don't you speak to me in our government class? And he said, I'm not taking a government class. And I said, yes, you are. He's like, nope. And then it dawned on him that I must be talking about his twin brother. Why are twins always like that, though? They kind of make you have to fish for it. Like, oh, yeah, nope. And then it dawned on him that I must be talking about his twin brother. Why are twins always like that, though? They kind of make you have to fish for it. Like, oh, yeah, right.

I am a twin. You did see my brother across the way. Exactly. Yeah. Your husband's been your ride or die. And I'm bringing that up because you both have very high-stress jobs that require a lot of you. What negotiations have you all made as a unit to be able to make this work? Because to have a family and to reach the levels that you've reached definitely means that there's some sort of blueprint that you all created for yourselves.

Oh, well, thank you. I mean, you know, as you live through it, it doesn't feel like it's completely organized. But I will say that I think very early on, we kind of decided to take turns. We could see how there would be different points in each of our career where the other person's professional needs would have to take precedence.

It's like we could have it all but not at the same time. And so there were periods, you know, when he was in his surgical residency, for example, you know, he couldn't do anything more than the 20 hours of service that they required in the hospital, you know, sleeping overnight, doing all. And so then I took a lot of the home responsibilities. And when I was clerking for the Supreme Court, it was flipped. You know, he took time out of his residency to do research in Washington, came down and, you know, supported me, brought me dinner at the court. One of my favorite stories in the book is such a relatable story.

You have two children, and there was a time period where you call home and say, what would you like from the grocery store? And then you go to the grocery store and spend 20 minutes taking a nap in the car before you came home. Now, that's not a relatable story. Well, actually, let me just say I had one child and I was pregnant with the other. So this was really the moment. I mean, my ankles were huge. I had worked all day. And because my husband was early in his being an attending at the hospital,

he was working crazy hours, and I knew I had to relieve the nanny pretty much every day. And so I would call the nanny on my way home saying, I'm going to go by the store. Do you need anything from the store? And she would say, no, I'm fine. I said, well, I'm going to go by the store anyway. I'll be home soon.

And I would go to the store. I just parked at the parking lot and took a nap. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson. She's written a new memoir about her life and rise to the Supreme Court called Lovely One. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Here at Planet Money, we bring complex economic ideas down to Earth. We find weird, fun, interesting stories that explain the way money shapes our lives.

Inflation, recessions, the price of gas, we've got you. Listen now to the Planet Money podcast from NPR. The Bullseye podcast is, according to one journalist, the, quote, kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world. So make your world more perfect. Every week, Bullseye puts the pop in culture, interviewing brilliant authors, musicians, actors, and novelists

to keep you on your pop culture target. Listen to the Bullseye podcast, only from NPR and Maximum Fun. Listening to the news can feel like a journey, but the 1A podcast guides you beyond the headlines and cuts through the noise. Listen to 1A, where we celebrate your freedom to listen by getting to the heart of the story together, only from NPR. What becomes very clear in this book is from a very young age, as you mentioned, you watched your father, you watched your parents work really hard and also improve themselves over time, in part because they had you and then they had your brother. And so it was important for them

to be able to provide for you all and also think about the example that they had for you, that they were giving you. But clearly you're an overachiever. And we learn in the book the building blocks that built that. There is this quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, The Ladder of St. Augustine, that you write about having on every single bulletin board in an office that you inhabit. Can you recite it? I can. I mean, I can't recite the whole point, but the critical part is, the heights that great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight,

but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward through the night. What do you love about that, that part of the poem? I love the idea that in order to be successful, it takes hard work. It takes commitment. It takes hard work. It takes commitment. It takes stamina. Doing something that perhaps others are unwilling to do when others are resting, you're pushing forward. that's sort of what I always envisioned my self to be my brand as I say in the book this is how I thought of myself throughout my professional career you know I used to think or say you can't always control whether you're the smartest person in the room for example but you could commit to being the hardest worker. And so I would be in my office before anybody else, and I would stay until after everybody else had gone home, because it was something that I could do, I think, to ensure that I was making a contribution.

So I just like the idea of hard work and that being an important value. I was wondering if Michelle Obama's comments about moving up the ranks and being in some of the most powerful rooms and then realizing that not everyone works as hard as you to get there or as smart as you. Did that resonate with you? You know, I have had similar experiences. I talk in the book about starting at a law firm. When I left my clerkship with Justice Breyer, I actually was pregnant. And my first real job after the clerkship was at a law firm in Boston. And it was very, very, very challenging for me for so many reasons. One was that I couldn't, once my daughter was born, devote the kinds of time and energy that I had previously done. You know, the hard work model that I talked about was not feasible.

Yeah, when there's a human involved. Once you have an infant. And so that was like an identity crisis for me almost. That was also being combined with looking around and seeing some people who were more easily given either the benefit of the doubt or credited in terms of their ideas and their contributions. When I felt like, you know, I was making the same point and yet, you know, it didn't seem to gain traction until someone else said it. And that was a little frustrating, especially since, you know, I had clerked for the Supreme Court, and I knew something about what was happening, and I didn't feel as though I necessarily was given the same respect in that way. But, you know, it was very complicated because I was, you know, pregnant. As you mentioned, you clerked for three judges, including

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, whom you considered a mentor. I do. Still do. You still do. Yes. What was some of the things that you learned from him that maybe show up in your work today? Oh, you know, it's so much. When you are a law clerk, you are working very, very closely with the judge who has hired you. It's a small group of people. Some judges have two law clerks, some have three, Justice Breyer had four, and you're drafting opinions. So you are speaking to the best of your ability in his voice and articulating his views. So you learn a lot about their perspective on the law because you have to be able to draft things that come from him. So I think I've learned a lot about law and democracy, which is his kind of real focus in terms of if one were to say he had a philosophy, That's where it comes from. And I learned a lot about court dynamics and the operations of the court and the obligation or duty to be collaborative, the way in which he would approach negotiations with his colleagues and listening to them, hearing them out, trying

to find approaches that could be collaborative. When he wrote his opinions, he was always very, very good at that. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown Jackson. She's written a new memoir about her life and rise to the Supreme Court called Lovely One, which references the meaning of her first name. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened. We tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand

the world through political eyes. Numbers that explain the economy. We love them at the indicator from Planet Money. And on Fridays, we discuss indicators in the news, like job numbers, spending, the cost of food, sometimes all three. So my indicator is about why you might need to bring home more bacon to afford your eggs. I'll be here all week. Wrap up your week and listen to The Indicator podcast from NPR. You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people

living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there and you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR, vital international stories every day. You're the first former public defender to serve on the Supreme Court. It is not a glamorous segment of the law. It's primarily fueled by passion versus prestige. And I'm just wondering, what were some of the deciding factors for you to take that leap? Because before that, you had clerked for very high profile judges. You were all the way up to the Supreme Court as a clerk. You worked in private practice. Yes. I think looking back on it, it was one of the most interesting, exciting, and important assignments that I had as a young lawyer for so

many reasons. I talk in the book about having worked at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, which was a public defense operation in New York as an intern before I went to law school, and really seeing for the first time the criminal justice system from the perspective of defendants and the way in which poverty matters and how the system actually operates on the ground. And that was very impactful in terms of my views of criminal justice. And, you know, fast forward then to my professional career, I had worked briefly at the Sentencing Commission as a staffer working on sentencing guidelines. I said before that, you know, I went into government after my daughter was born. Eventually, the government position was with the Sentencing Commission. But I felt pretty strongly that I had not yet practiced in criminal justice in any meaningful way.

I had clerked, but I had not represented clients or the government. And so I actually originally applied to both the Public Defender Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office. And I didn't get the U.S. Attorney's Office position, but I did get to be a public defender. And I was so grateful for that. What advantage or perspective do you think your role as a public defender has given to you as a Supreme Court justice? Well, as a judge and then also a justice, I think it's been extraordinarily significant. You know, I said in one of my confirmation hearings that being a public defender made me understand the importance of communicating clearly to people in the criminal justice process. Because my role as a public defender was as an appellate attorney. So all of my clients

had been convicted. And my job was to look through their trial records and materials and try to come up with arguments that we could make to the Court of Appeals to see if they could get new trials or the like. And one of the things I discovered very early on was how few of my clients really understood what had happened to them in the trial process. You know, I'd try to call them in jail and I'd try to get their, you know, what happened at trial? Did the judge make a mistake? And they had no idea because they had gone through this very substantial procedure without knowledge. And so when I became a judge, I really focused on being clear in my rulings,

in my speaking directly to people. I would call them by their names. There are judges who call people defendant or whatever. I would address them. I would say, you know, I was very clear about what harm their behavior had caused, why it to serve their sentences and come out and reform and not commit this crime again. And they can only do that if they understand that this is the consequence that you have to face for the behavior that you engaged in. And what was happening with my clients, many of them weren't able to reform or weren't interested in reforming. They were mad at the judge. They were blaming the process. They were focused on how they felt they had been treated unfairly instead of focusing on how am I going to change my behavior when I get out of here. I want to ask you about your Uncle Thomas.

Yes. You write about your Uncle Thomas in the book. He was sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent cocaine conviction in 1989. You were a freshman at Harvard at the time. But you didn't realize that it was a life sentence until you received a phone call from him. And you were well into your career by this point. Yes. You were face to face with exactly what you were talking about as someone in your family

trying to figure out his own fate and how he had come to it. Yes. Yes. It was really, really tough. You know, I knew that my uncle had gone to jail. You know, this was my father's oldest brother or his second oldest brother, the only one I knew. He had committed a nonviolent drug courier offense, but I didn't find that out even until he contacted me when I became a federal public defender. My dad had just said he's going away for a long time, but they didn't know and gave me the details. I don't know if they even knew them really. And this is maybe 20 years or something into his sentence. I mean, it was a long time or 15 years.

And he called me from jail just like a prisoner call like I get from my other clients. And I was totally caught off guard. And he asked if I could just look at his records because he was trying to challenge the life sentence that he received. And he had gotten it pursuant to a three strikes law that exists in the federal system, because he had had two prior pretty minor drug offenses. What you learned from your uncle's case, and I should say that in 2016, President Obama commuted his sentence. He had been in prison for 25 years up until that point. But what you learned from your uncle's case, along with your role as a public defender, opened your world that was so far from your elite education and your pedigree and your middle class upbringing. And how did what you learned factor into your role as part of the

U.S. Sentencing Commission? Because under that role, which you held for several years, you helped retroactively amend the sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses. Yeah. You know, I think you talked early on about Cory Booker saying that I had a lot of experience. And it reminds me of a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who once said that the life of the law is not knowledge, it is experience. And that has been the case for me. That has been my thinking as well when it comes to thinking about the law, deciding what it means. On the Sentencing Commission, we worked on sentencing policy, what should be the right sentence in different circumstances. The guidelines help federal judges to make those kinds of determinations. a family member going through the system in this way can only enlighten one's views of the circumstances. When people argue about the legal system or when people talk about

how should it work, when you've known people who've gone through it, I think you have a good sense of what the system should be, how it should operate, and how it affects people, how it actually affects people. There's so much about the law that could be purely theoretical if you don't have any experience with how it actually impacts real people. And so the more you are able, I think, to be in the world and have experienced things from different vantage points, I think it makes it easier in some ways to evaluate the arguments and issues. Thank you, Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson. It has been an honor to talk with you. Thank you so much. I've enjoyed it. Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson's new memoir is titled Lovely One. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, how anti-fascist vigilantes are infiltrating the far right, posing as white nationalists, and outing the extremists planning attacks. They say that the FBI is often handicapped by the First Amendment protecting hate

speech. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Seward.

Susan Yakundi directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley. Who's claiming power this election? What's happening in battleground states? And why do we still have the Electoral College? All this month, the ThruLine podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. We all hear things differently, and that can be tough when there's so much noise. This election year, we're a space to speak up and to listen.

Listen to 1A for the latest on election 2024, only from NPR.