How does Biden’s Supreme Court nominee stand on marijuana legalization? Here’s what we found

President Biden is expected to nominate Federal Circuit Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill the seat of outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court in an official announcement later this afternoon.

If nominated, Jackson, 51, will enter the whirlpool of scrutiny that surrounds Supreme Court nominees in our overloaded political environment. But when you turn to Leafly for news about a Supreme Court nominee, you want to know one thing: How does she feel about marijuana legalization?

Here’s what we know.

A brief review of Jackson’s media appearances makes no direct statement on legalization. But there are many entries on her resume that suggest she would at least give any legal challenges to the ban a fair hearing.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post attributes great importance to Jackson’s two years of experience as a public defender in Washington, DC in a recently published article. “She would be the first Justice to serve as a public defender for the federation,” Marcus wrote, “two years at the DC Public Defense Service Appeals Office. Not since Thurgood Marshall has a judge had so much experience representing defendants.”

During her confirmation hearing for a federal Circuit Court seat, Jackson told a Senate confirmation committee that “there’s a direct connection from my defense work to what I do on the bench.”

Any attorney who has spent even a single day as a public defender has had first-hand experience of the injustices and cruelty of America’s marijuana laws.

Jackson’s interaction with the country’s drug laws didn’t stop there, however. Later in her career, she served on the US Sentencing Commission tasked with reforming our country’s blatant racial disparities in drug laws. After Congress moved to close the gap between sentences handed down for crack and powder cocaine (i.e., the gap between black and white defendants in many cases), Jackson argued that the amended sentencing guidelines should apply retrospectively to people serving federal sentences on crack -Possession.

As Marcus of the Post quotes Judge Jackson:

“My vote today does not resemble a caricature of a policymaker intent on freeing violent criminals without authorization and against the wishes of Congress,” Jackson said. “If ever the day comes when applying a policy retrospectively … serves our societal interests in a fair trial and in avoiding unjustified discrimination,” she continued – pausing here to emphasize each word – “is this the day.”

Her words have obvious implications for the thousands of Americans who are serving outrageous sentences for cannabis – many of whom have or will see cannabis become legal in their state and may one day see it become legal under federal law.

Stay tuned. The battle for Judge Jackson’s appointment has only just begun, and our nation’s unjust drug laws and historical stigmas often play a role in both politically symbolic and legally significant ways.

Cannabis and the Supreme Court

Bruce Barcott

Leafly Senior Editor Bruce Barcott oversees news, investigations and feature projects. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of Weed the People: The Future of Legal Marijuana in America.

Check out Bruce Barcott’s articles

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