Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson can throw a punch. Literally.

WASHINGTON − Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson can make a pointed comment with her pen, pin down a lawyer she thinks is evading an answer in oral arguments, and also throw a punch. Literally.

Once a week, the court’s newest justice takes off her judicial robe and laces on boxing gloves.

The nation's high court can be a pressure-cooker, with far-reaching consequences for the country. “It is not easy what we do,” Jackson told USA TODAY in an interview in her chambers that dealt mostly with her memoir, "Lovely One," published by Random House, and briefly with her new exercise regime. “And you do have to have some mode of release.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most senior liberal-leaning justice on the court, revealed earlier this year that there are days when she retreats to her office after a major decision she disagrees with, shuts her door and cries.

Justice Elena Kagan, the other colleague in the minority when the court splits along ideological lines, said she’s “more of a wall slammer.”

Asked to share her coping mechanism, Jackson said she has hired a boxing trainer.

“So I guess I’m closer to Justice Kagan,” she said with a laugh.

Her extracurricular activities growing up were not sports but speech competitions – where she excelled – and acting. (At Harvard, Matt Damon was one of her scene partners.)

Now Jackson changes into street clothes and works out weekly with a boxing trainer in the Supreme Court gym.

Jackson demurred when asked if she was any good at boxing, but she said she knows how to move.

“I have rhythm,” she said, “and a lot of it is rhythm.”

More: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has a lot to say - but not about the court

The sport was suggested by one of her female security officers who is a boxer.

Bullet proof vests and 'unnerving' security threats

The justices’ need for security was highlighted this week when police arrested and charged an Alaska man with making "heinous" threats to torture and kill six Supreme Court justices and some of their family members.

At a judicial conference earlier this month, Justice Amy Coney Barrett described her son’s discovery that she had been wearing a bulletproof vest.

Barrett did not explain the reason for the protection. But a Nevada man awaiting trial for his participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot allegedly threatened Barrett in June after she dissented from the court’s decision to limit how prosecutors can charge Jan. 6 defendants.

Jackson, who joined the court in 2022, called the security threats “very unnerving.”

“I think it would be unnerving to anyone who is in this kind of a public position to hear about those kinds of threats,” she said.

At the same time, Jackson said she doesn’t want to become too isolated because of security precautions.

“We are dealing with lots of issues that impact people,” she said. “And so I don’t want to be in a world where I’m so divorced from what is actually happening out there that I can’t effectively do my job, at least as I see it.”

But, Jackson added, “security concerns are a real issue.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson can throw a punch. Literally.