Politico reports:

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson urged Americans on Tuesday to defend the judicial system against salvos that jeopardize its independence, warning that such threats have the potential to do serious damage to American democracy.

“Equal justice under law is a key tenet to freedom in our society, and in order to have that, you have to have an independent judiciary — one that is not beholden to the political branches or beholden to people,” Jackson said during an appearance before hundreds of students at Southern Methodist University. “I just wish that people really focused on that and, therefore, stood up in some ways for the judiciary, when people — judges are being attacked and undermined, that is really an attack on our society.”

Jackson did not mention any specific attacks on the judiciary, although since the Supreme Court struck down a key aspect of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy earlier this year, Trump has unleashed an unusually caustic series of attacks on the three members of the court’s conservative majority who joined the liberal justices in the 6-3 ruling.

Trump has also called for the impeachment of district court judges who have ruled against the administration on other issues, like deporting alleged gang members to a notorious anti-terrorism prison in El Salvador without due process. Those calls prompted Chief Justice John Roberts to declare publicly that he believes that judges should not face impeachment due to disagreement with their rulings.

During a conference in Puerto Rico a year ago, Jackson offered a similar warning about attempts to intimidate the judiciary. However, she delivered that message to a group of federal judges, while her latest comments were more squarely aimed at encouraging the public to counter intrusions on judges’ autonomy. [Continue reading…]