Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Talks Ethics, Presidential Immunity in First Broadcast Interview Since Confirmation

In her first broadcast interview since joining the nation’s highest court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson talks Donald Trump’s presidential immunity case, an enforceable code of ethics for her and her colleagues, and how the last two years on the bench have gone as the first ever Black woman to serve as a United States Supreme Court justice.

Since joining the court, CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell pointed out, Jackson has been a keen questioner.

“You immediately became the most prolific questioner among the justices,” O’Donnell said. “No one else is even close to you.” Jackson smiled. “Why do you laugh?” the anchor asked.

“Because, I was the most prolific questioner as a district court judge as well,” Jackson said. “Because I have a lot of questions,” she continued, her tone turning serious. “We have a very complicated legal system, and these issues are hard.”

CBS’s sit-down with Justice Jackson comes as President Joe Biden is, in part, using his remaining time in office to push for Supreme Court reform amid historically high levels of American distrust in the institution. As of a couple months ago, fewer than half of Americans have a favorable opinion of the court, according to a Pew Research Center survey. For Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, that number drops to 24 percent. Black respondents, along with women, were more likely to feel disdain for the court.

In late July, Biden released a three-part plan of reforms.

First, pass a “No One Is Above the Law Amendment,” establishing that “the Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as President”—a direct response to the court’s recent immunity ruling where they sided with Trump. Second, term limits for justices set to 18 years. Last, “Congress should pass binding, enforceable conduct and ethics rules that require Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves” from cases where conflicts of interest could arise for themselves or their spouses.

Justice Jackson wrote a scathing dissent in the immunity case, which ruled that former presidents have “absolute” protection from criminal prosecution for “official” actions done while in office.

“The majority of my colleagues seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings through case-by-case application of the indeterminate standards of their new Presidential accountability paradigm,” she wrote. “I fear that they are wrong. But, for all our sakes, I hope that they are right.”

When O’Donnell asked Jackson about this case, the justice responded, “I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances. When we have a criminal justice system that had, ordinarily, treated everyone the same.”

“Are you prepared that this election could end up before the Supreme Court?” O’Donnell followed up.

“As prepared as anyone can be,” Jackson said. “I think there are legal issues that arise out of the political process, and so the Supreme Court has to be prepared to respond if that should be necessary.”

Some of Jackson’s coworkers on the bench have been in hot water recently.

In April of 2023, a ProPublica investigation found that, for over two decades, Justice Clarence Thomas was being treated to luxury vacations from billionaire and political donor Harlan Crow. It was the first drop in what has become a stream of reporting about potential ethics violations from Thomas and other justices. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, has also been in the news for flying two flags synonymous with the “Stop the Steal” movement—the unfounded right-wing theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by Biden—outside of the couple’s homes in Virginia and New Jersey.

“I’m not going to comment on other justice’s interpretation of the rules or what they’re doing,” Jackson said during the CBS interview.

In November, all nine justices signed onto the court’s first formal code of conduct governing the ethical behavior of its members, but that agreement doesn’t appear to have a clear enforcement mechanism. When asked about her personal code, Jackson responded, “I follow the rules, whatever they are with respect to ethical obligations, and it’s important, in my view, to do so. It really boils down to impartiality—that’s what the rules are about. People are entitled to know if you’re accepting gifts as a judge, so that they can evaluate whether or not your opinions are impartial.”

While the justice said that she was “not going to get into commenting on particular policy proposals,” she personally doesn’t “have any problem with an enforceable code.”

“A binding code of ethics is pretty standard for judges, so I guess the question is, ‘is the Supreme Court any different?’ And I guess I have not seen a persuasive reason as to why the court is different than the other courts,” Jackson said.

O’Donnell and Jackson also discussed how she got to this moment—the first Black woman to ever serve as a Supreme Court justice. Jackson will share more of her own story in her upcoming memoir Lovely One coming out on Tuesday. (The title is an ode to her name “Ketanji Onyika,” meaning “Lovely One.”)

“I want to go into law and eventually have a judicial appointment,” Jackson is quoted as saying in her high school yearbook. She was already a debate champion back then. “I had forgotten all about that, but there it is in my high school yearbook,” she told O’Donnell.

Looking back at that time in her life, Jackson recalled a poem that remains close to her to this day—The Ladder of St. Augustine, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“The heights by great men reached and kept/Were not attained by sudden flight,” it reads. “But they, while their companions slept,/Were toiling upward in the night.”

This line, Jackson explained, is her “favorite summary” of how she felt.

“I was the person who was going to toil upward in the night, always.”