Justice Jackson Writes First Majority Opinion for Supreme Court

(RightWing.org) – President Joe Biden nominated DC Circuit Court of Appeals Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court in February 2022. The Senate confirmed her nomination two months later. Retiring Justice Stephen Breyer administered the judicial oath to Jackson on June 30, 2022, making her the first black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. She recently wrote her first majority opinion for the court.

On February 28, Justice Jackson delivered the court’s opinion in Delaware v. Pennsylvania for a unanimous court with respect to Parts I through IV-A and Part IV-B with Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh. and Sonia Sotomayor. The court heard oral arguments in October 2022.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has written her first majority opinion for the Supreme Court. The opinion released Tuesday is one of roughly a half dozen she is expected to write by the time the court finishes its work for the summer. https://t.co/ccec6uBaIE

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 1, 2023

The case involved a dispute between 30 states and Delaware over unclaimed money from two products sold by MoneyGram: its agent checks and teller checks. The money-transfer company sent the abandoned funds to Delaware since that’s where MoneyGram is incorporated. However, the other states argued the special master assigned to the case should apply a federal law that requires the funds to be disbursed to the state where money orders, traveler’s checks, and other “similar written instruments” were purchased.

Writing for the majority, Jackson wrote that the agent and teller checks operated “like a money order” and remanded the case to the special master for further action consistent with the Supreme Court’s 23-page opinion.

Jackson delivered her first dissenting opinion in November 2022, joined by Sotomayor. The two justices sided with a death row inmate from Ohio, but the majority of the court voted to decline to hear the case.

Jackson is expected to deliver roughly half a dozen more majority opinions this term. The Supreme Court hears seven two-week rounds of arguments every year from October through April and issues its rulings by the end of June.

Typically, each justice delivers one opinion per round. However, the court only heard seven cases in both January and February, meaning there won’t be enough for each of the nine justices.