Jackson writes her first majority opinion in state disputes case

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court — submitted her first majority opinion Tuesday.

There were no dissenting opinions in the case, which dealt with unclaimed monies disputes between states.

The 52-year-old jurist penned her first dissent in November, where she and Justice Sonia Sotomayor were alone in their support of an Ohio Death Row inmate hoping to have his conviction reconsidered. Jackson felt the lower courts should have had another look at the case.

Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Biden in February 2022. She was sworn into office in June, following a contentious 53-to-47 confirmation hearing where she was pressed by Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn to define the word “woman.”

Much to the chagrin of many conservatives, Jackson, a Harvard Law graduate, said that question would be better answered by a biologist.

Chief Justice John Roberts administered Jackson’s constitutional oath and former Associate Justice Stephen Breyer oversaw her judicial oath on June 30, 2022.

Jackson is one of three Black judges appointed to the Supreme Court since it assembled in 1790. The first was Thurgood Marshall, a President Lyndon B. Johnson nominee who died in 1993. The other is Jackson’s conservative benchmate Clarence Thomas, 74, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush.

Biden called Jackson’s confirmation “a historic moment” and predicted “she will be an incredible justice.”

Jackson is expected to pen another handful of decisions before the court breaks for the summer around late June.