Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson this Tuesday morning about what she was thinking as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) made utterly deceptive attacks against her for supposedly being too lenient in criminal cases involving child pornography. Jackson replied as follows, adeptly dismantling Hawley’s shoddy argument:
‘As a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, I was thinking that nothing could be further from the truth. These are some of the most difficult cases that a judge has to deal with… There’s a statute that tells judges what they’re supposed to do. Congress has decided what it is that a judge has to do in this and any other case when they sentence. And that statute doesn’t say, look only at the guidelines and stop. The statute doesn’t say, impose the highest possible penalty for this sickening and egregious crime. The statute says, calculate the guidelines but also look at various aspects of this offense and impose a sentence that is “sufficient but not greater than necessary to promote the purposes of punishment.” And in every case, when I am dealing with something like this, it is important to me to make sure that the children’s perspective, the children’s voices are represented in my sentencings.’
Durbin asks Jackson what was going through her mind, especially with her kids being there, as Hawley made his meritless attacks on her for being soft on child porn. She says, "as a mother, and a judge … I was thinking nothing could be further from the truth." pic.twitter.com/hZ5BRVWkHP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 22, 2022
Hawley originally raised the allegation that Jackson had been somehow lenient with individuals involved with child pornography in the days before her confirmation hearings began this week, and he brought the allegation back up in an opening statement this Monday. (Unfortunately, he’s a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so he’s there for the hearings.) Hawley insisted that in seven particular cases Jackson “handed down a lenient sentence that was below what the federal guidelines recommended and below what prosecutors requested.” (Her career up to this point includes work as a federal judge.) But, as The Washington Post explains: ‘Once again, [Hawley] left out the all-important details that Jackson followed the probation office’s sentencing recommendations in five of the seven cases — and that, in the United States overall, only 30 percent of sentences in such child pornography cases are within “federal guidelines.” Jackson is within the mainstream of judicial behavior.’
As chairman trying to shepherd Jackson nomination, Durbin trying to take GOP hits off the table early in hearing. Getting her to respond to court packing (McConnell criticism), sentencing child pornographers (Hawley criticism), representing Gitmo detainees (Cornyn critique)
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 22, 2022
Jackson’s record includes far more honorable work than Hawley’s — she’s been a public defender, a federal sentencing commission member, an appeals court judge, and more, while Hawley has been… an insurrection-inciter. Biden administration press secretary Jen Psaki also responded to Hawley’s attacks on Jackson last week, observing that she’s “not sure that someone who refused to tell people whether or not he would vote for Roy Moore is an effective and credible messenger on this.” Moore, the Republican candidate for an Alabama Senate seat who faced revelations that he’d apparently engaged in sexual abuse of young girls, was not universally and unequivocally condemned in the GOP — Hawley originally “called on Moore to drop out if the allegations were true, but he hedged on whether or not he would vote for him,” as McClatchy explains the issue.
Judge Jackson, responding to Republican Josh Hawley's accusations that she's soft on child porn cases:
"As a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, I was thinking that nothing could be further from the truth."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 22, 2022
