Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Supreme Court’s newest member, denounced on Thursday what she described as “relentless attacks” on judges, and an environment of harassment that “ultimately risks undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
“ Across the nation, judges are facing increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retaliation just for doing our jobs,” said Justice Jackson, speaking at a conference for judges held in Puerto Rico. “And the attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.”
Justice Jackson did not mention President Trump by name nor cite any specific attacks against judges. However, her remarks came as Mr. Trump and his allies have repeatedly targeted judges who have blocked key pieces of his agenda, even calling for judges who have ruled against him to be impeached….
Justice Jackson criticized the targeting of judges for doing their job, and said those attacks have a bigger, more structural impact for the democratic system.
“A society in which judges are routinely made to fear for their own safety or their own livelihood due to their decisions is one that has substantially departed from the norms of behavior that govern a democratic system,” said Justice Jackson, during her participation as keynote speaker at the First Circuit Judicial Conference. “Attacks on judicial independence is how countries that are not free, not fair, and not rule of law oriented, operate.”
She noted that May 1 is National Law Day, which was marked elsewhere by demonstrations of lawyers protesting Mr. Trump’s attack on the legal profession. Because of the occasion, she said, she was “taking this point of personal privilege to reaffirm the significance of judicial independence and to denounce attacks on judges based on their rules.”
Justice Jackson devoted most of her address to a less formal discussion of her life and her memoir released last year. But she came prepared with written remarks on the rule of law that she said she wanted to address first.