Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton. At age 83, he seems to have learned from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s mistake, who did not retire during a Democratic presidency and was replaced during President Donald Trump’s term, creating a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.
Breyer is retiring when the Democrats, at least for now, have a majority in Congress and a 51 to 50 vote in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie breaker.
I listened attentively to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham glowingly speak about the South Carolinian District Judge Julianna Michelle Childs, who is one of the contenders. She is Congressman James Clyburn’s favorite pick. It was Clyburn who turned President Joe Biden’s campaign around when he gave the then losing presidential candidate his first big win – South Carolina. Clyburn asked Biden for a favor given that helping hand: the appointment of a Black woman to the Supreme Court, who will be its first. Graham appears to be lending his support to Childs, which would add at least one Republican Senate vote to the mix.
Another potential nominee is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the daughter of attorney Johnny Brown, who served as a Miami-Dade County Public School attorney. Jackson currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit. She graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Harvard University and Harvard Law School. She served as law clerk to Breyer, has a real strong résumé and, based on my conversations with her father, she is absolutely brilliant.
Yet another current contender is California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, a former deputy solicitor general. She graduated from Harvard University and Yale Law School and taught as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. As an attorney in the solicitor general’s office, she argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court. She served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Justice Paul Stevens.
Both Jackson and Kruger possess the pedigrees typically found in Supreme Court Justices – Ivy League educations, Supreme Court law clerk experience and strong appellate experience as sitting judges.
Childs is not a sitting appellate judge. She did not attend Ivy League schools – she went to the University of South Florida and attended law school at the University of South Carolina. Some pundits are stating we should break the Ivy League cycle and appoint someone who is not on the traditional Supreme Court track. My favorite justice, Justice Thurgood Marshall, was a trial lawyer and graduate of Howard University. While I attended Ivy League schools, I think some of the best trial lawyers I have encountered came from non-Ivy League schools.
In my mind, all three candidates are fantastic. Childs has the additional benefit of getting Graham’s endorsement. My
Reginald J. Clyne, Esq.
heart personally lies with Jackson, because she is the daughter of my friend and – let’s be blunt – she was raised in
South Florida.
At a time when there has been so much destructive action by Republicans to end abortion rights and suppress the vote, we need a fair and impartial Supreme Court. The appointment of a new justice will not change the 6-3 conservative majority, but hopefully Biden can get two more appointments and make it a 5-4 court. With a majority of Biden appointments, the Supreme Court will actually protect voting rights, women’s rights and civil rights. Then we could all breathe easier knowing that Black people will not be thrown backward by a new wave of Jim Crow laws.
Reginald J. Clyne is a Miami trial lawyer who has practiced in some of the largest law firms in the United States. Clyne has been in practice since 1987 and tries cases in both state and federal court. He has lived in Africa, Brazil, Honduras and Nicaragua.