Audio Home Recording Act Judge Is Viable Nominee for Scalia’s Seat, Supreme Court Blogger Says

If President Barack Obama is determined to nominate a black woman to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court, one viable candidate would be Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. district judge in the District of Columbia, wrote Tom Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSBlog.com, Tuesday in a blog post. Jackson is the presiding judge in the recording industry’s complaint that the major automakers have violated the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) by shipping CD-copying hard drives without paying royalties required under the statute (see 1407310086). Jackson held a hearing May 5 on the automakers’ motions to dismiss the case because their products are outside the AHRA’s scope (see 1505060062), but after nine months of taking the arguments under advisement, she hasn't ruled on the pleadings. In Jackson, Obama would have a nominee who previously was confirmed “without any Republican opposition in the Senate not once, but twice,” first for a seat on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, later to her current judgeship, said Goldstein. Jackson’s “credentials are impeccable,” including cum laude graduate honors at the Harvard Law School and being a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, said Goldstein, who has argued more than 30 cases before the Supreme Court. Jackson, 45, also is related by marriage to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., wrote Goldstein.