Supreme Court Justice Jackson Gets Support From Conservatives in First Majority Ruling

On Tuesday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued her first majority opinion since joining the U.S. Supreme Court, garnering unanimous support on most of the filing.

Jackson wrote the opinion in the case of Delaware v. Pennsylvania et al., a case related to a dispute between multiple states on escheatment of unclaimed money.

The court overruled objections from Delaware, greenlighting the continued authority of a special master in the proceedings consistent with the court opinions. 

The eight other justices unanimously supported Parts I, II, III, and IV-A of the opinion. For part IV-B, Jackson was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh in her opinion regarding Part IV-B. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett did not concur with Part IV-B.

Jackson first wrote an opinion in November 2022, a short dissenting opinion supporting Ohio death row inmate Davel Chinn’s motion. That opinion only garnered support from Sotomayor. 

While there are perceived ideological differences between justices, there is reportedly a good working environment among the colleagues. Last month, Kavanaugh offered praise for Jackson, telling an audience at the University of Notre Dame Law School that she has “hit the ground running.”

Kavanaugh was addressing the belief that the Supreme Court is sharply divided on ideological grounds, after a series of controversial decisions went in favor of conservatives, at a keynote Q&A session at the 2023 Notre Dame Law Review Federal Courts Symposium. 

“There are great relations among all nine justices both personally and professionally. We only get tough cases, and we disagree on some of those. I think that’s more nuanced than it is sometimes portrayed,” Kavanaugh said.

Among those cases was Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, the case which legalized abortion at a national level. The overturn allowed states to make their own laws on abortion. 

The court also ruled with Republican states to delay the end of Title 42, a Trump era policy that allowed border officials to expel migrants from the country.