Amy Berman Jackson

Amy Sauber Berman Jackson (born July 22, 1954) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Amy Berman was born on July 22, 1954, in Baltimore, Maryland, She is the daughter of Mildred (Sauber) and Barnett Berman, a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

She received her A.B. from Harvard College in 1976 and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1979.

After graduating from law school, Jackson served as a law clerk to Judge Harrison Lee Winter of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1979 to 1980.

From 1980 to 1986, she served as an assistant United States attorney for the District of Columbia, where she received Department of Justice Special Achievement Awards for her work on high-profile murder and sexual assault cases in 1985 and 1986.

From 1986 to 1994, Jackson was an associate and then a partner at Venable, Baetjer, Howard and Civiletti.

From 2000 until her appointment as a federal judge, Jackson was a member of the law firm Trout Cacheris & Solomon PLLC in Washington, D.C. where she specialized in complex litigation, criminal investigations and defense, criminal trials, civil trials, and appeals.

In 2009 Jackson represented nine-term Representative for Louisiana's 2nd congressional district William J. Jefferson in his corruption trial.

Jackson has served as a legal commentator for Fox News, CNN, NBC, and MSNBC.

On June 17, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to fill a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that was vacated by Judge Gladys Kessler, who assumed senior status in 2007.

She was unanimously rated "well qualified" for the post by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary (the committee's highest rating).

Her nomination lapsed at the end of the 111th Congress; Obama renominated her on January 5, 2011, at the beginning of the 112th Congress.

The United States Senate confirmed Jackson on March 17, 2011, by a 97–0 vote.

She received her commission the next day.

She assumed senior status on May 1, 2023.

In Chamber of Commerce v. National Labor Relations Board (2012), Jackson ruled that the National Labor Relations Board had the statutory authority to promulgate a federal regulation requiring the posting of workplace posters informing workers of the right to organize and collectively bargain, but also struck down the portions of the regulation in which the NLRB made a "blanket advance determination that a failure to post [the notice] will always constitute an unfair labor practice" and tolled the statute of limitations in unfair labor practice actions involving a failures to post.

The next year, the D.C. Circuit vacated the NLRB rule, finding that it contravened Section 8(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, the provision protecting most employers' speech.

Also in March 2012, Jackson overturned a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that revoked a permit for the Spruce 1 mine project in Logan County, West Virginia, on the ground that the EPA did not have power under the Clean Water Act to rescind the permit.

That ruling was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in April 2013.

Jackson presided at the August 2013 sentencing of former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.. and his wife, Sandi Jackson.

After accepting guilty pleas to misuse of campaign funds, she sentenced Representative Jackson to 30 months and his wife to 12 months in prison.

In December 2013, in the case of Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Sebelius, Jackson ruled for the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Washington in its constitutional test case challenge to the contraceptive mandate under the Affordable Care Act as applied to the church's District of Columbia employees.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies made accommodations for religious organizations, under which such organizations did not have to "provide, pay for, or facilitate access to contraception" if they certify their objection to doing so.

Jackson rejected the archdiocese's argument that the act of "self-certifying" in itself constitutes a substantial burden on the archdiocese's right to freely exercise religion.

On September 30, 2014, Jackson ruled in the EPA's favor, allowing its veto of the permit to stand.

In 2015, Jackson ruled against a coalition of businesses who challenged an NLRB rule expediting union elections.

Van der Zwaan had pleaded guilty to a single count of making a false statement to investigators regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

Upon release he was deported to Holland.

In May 2017, Jackson dismissed a wrongful death suit filed against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by the parents of two of the Americans killed in the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, on the basis of the Westfall Act.

In October 2017, Jackson was assigned to preside over the criminal case that Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election cycle.

She accepted their "not guilty" pleas, granted bail, confiscated their passports, and ordered them held under house arrest.

She also warned defense lawyers not to discuss the case outside of court.

On June 15, 2018, after the prosecution accused Manafort of attempted witness tampering, Jackson revoked his bail and sent him to jail until his upcoming federal trials.

On February 23, 2018, Gates pleaded guilty to one count of false statements and one count of conspiracy against the United States.

The plea bargain to which Gates agreed included his cooperation with the Mueller investigation.

On September 14, 2018, Manafort pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy against the United States and his plea bargain similarly included an agreement to cooperate with Mueller's investigation.

On April 3, 2018, Jackson sentenced a former associate of Gates, Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan, who practiced in London, to one month in prison and a $20,000 fine.

But on February 13, 2019, Jackson ruled that Manafort had lied to Mueller's office, to the FBI, and to a grand jury after having pleaded guilty regarding his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a man the FBI believed had ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

Jackson ruled that the Special Counsel was no longer bound by the original terms of Manafort's plea, which included the prosecution having committed to advocating a sentence reduction for him.

Trump pardoned Manafort on December 23, 2020, the same day he pardoned Roger Stone.