Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation: Senators spar on 'soft on crime;' Jackson defends child porn sentences

Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans continued to hammer Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for her sentences as a federal court judge and accused her being too lenient on criminals – a charge that Democrats and Biden’s Supreme Court nominee refuted. 

The issue of her child pornography sentences again came to a head on Wednesday with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., leading a combative line of questioning with Jackson where he accused her of being “wrong” on her approach to sentencing internet-based child porn crimes and said he hoped such criminals would “go to jail for 50 years.”

He took particular issue with Jackson saying she imposed lengthy periods of supervision and restrictions on their computer use as a means for deterrence – in addition to her criminal jail sentence that Graham has deemed too light in several cases. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., questions Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“All I can say is that your view of how to deter child pornography is not my view,” Graham said in advocating for lengthier sentences. “I think you’re doing it wrong. And every judge who does what you’re doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited.”

Jackson tried to explain that child pornography guidelines were initially created when offenders were literally sending individual images in the mail and computers have changed the landscape where thousands of images can be distributed “with one click.” Judges, she said, rely on the system that Congress created “to be rational in our dealing with some of the most horrible kinds of behavior.”

“You can be doing this for 15 minutes, and all of a sudden you are looking at 30, 40, 50 years in prison,” Jackson said, in explaining her sentencing decisions. 

“Good, good. Absolutely good,” Graham interrupted. 

“So you don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that’s a horrible thing,” he said. 

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Jackson, in addressing this repeated line of questioning from GOP senators over two days, told Graham: “Every person in all of these charts and documents I sent to jail because I know how serious this crime is.”

Graham, who voted to promote Jackson last year to become a DC federal appellate court judge, has vocally been upset that Biden didn’t choose his pick for Supreme Court, Judge J. Michelle Childs of South Carolina, and accused left wing activist of sinking Childs nomination prospects in favor of Jackson.

At the hearings he’s repeatedly aired grievances on how Democrats have treated past conservative nominees and on Wednesday even asked Jackson to weigh in on how Justice Brett Kavanaugh was treated. He accused Democrats of sitting on sexual assault allegations against President Trump’s nominee until the “last minute” to have maximum impact.

“He was ambushed,” Graham said. “How would you feel if we did that to you?”

Jackson, when eventually given a chance to respond when Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., intervened, said she didn’t watch the Kavanaugh hearings. “Senator, I don’t have any comment on what procedures took place in this body regarding Justice Kavanaugh.”

The third day of Supreme Court  confirmation hearings Wednesday is the last time senators will have to question Jackson in person. If confirmed, she’ll replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she once clerked. 

Wednesday’s hearing kicked off with disputes among senators whether the White House was withholding documents from Republicans and whether Jackson was too soft on crime. 

But Jackson, with the help of Democrats on Senate Judiciary Committee, sought to pivot to her personal biography by highlighting how far the country has come on civil rights with her parents growing up in “Florida under lawful segregation” and now, a generation later, she’s having the opportunity to become the nation’s 116th Supreme Court justice. 

Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson responds to a question from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., foreground, as she testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022, during her confirmation hearing. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“What my being here,” Jackson told the senators, “… is about the progress that we’ve made in this country in a very short period of time,” Jackson said. 

“Seems like a long time but in one generation we’ve gone from the reality of my parents upbringing to the reality of mine,” she continued. “I do consider myself having been born in 1970 to be the first generation to benefit from the civil rights movement,” she said.

With a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court in the balance, senators sought to drill down her previous record as a federal trial judge and her judicial philosophy but complained they didn’t have the same access to information that Democrats did. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, continued to raise issues that Democratic senators were given additional information about Jackson’s criminal sentences from the White House to discredit information raised by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., but not Republicans. Hawley has been criticizing Jackson’s child porn sentencing record for days.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, left, listens as Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaks during Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“I want to address that issue that was raised yesterday about records,” Grassley, the top Republican on the committee, said. “Sen. [Ted] Cruz, R-Texas, raised a very legitimate question about data related to U.S. probation officer recommendations. The White House and members of this committee use that information to attempt to discredit information raised by Sen. Hawley and others about the nominee’s sentencing record as a district judge. No one on our side of the aisle had access to this information.”

Durbin, D-Ill., previously said that the White House would grant the same information to Republicans if requested, to which Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., responded: “So you had to be clairvoyant and know they had it?” The issue is centered on whether Jackson followed recommendations from probation officers, prosecutors and sentencing guidelines when announcing criminals sentences for child porn and drug cases.

Hawley, Cruz, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., spent time Tuesday questioning Jackson’s judgement and whether she deviated from standards to be too lenient. Cruz said Jackson has a “record of activism” on sexual predators that’s “deeply concerning.”

Jackson has stood by her decisions from the bench and pointed out that “sentencing is discretionary act of a judge.” Democrats and the White House have denounced the criticism as cherry-picked cases that don’t represent the breadth of her record. 

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson arrives for the third day of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022.
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Durbin opened Wednesday’s hearing by painting the sentencing hubbub as merely a political tactic for Republicans that’s not rooted in facts. 

“For many of senators, yesterday was an opportunity to showcase talking points for the November election,” Durbin said. “For example, all Democrats are soft on crime. Therefore, this nominee must be soft on crime. Well, you’ve made a mess of their stereotype. The endorsement of the Fraternal Order Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police just doesn’t fit with their stereotype of a Harvard grad black woman who is aspiring to the highest court in the land.”

Jackson has police endorsements, and she testified about how law enforcement and public service are in her family. Her younger brother Ketajh served as a Baltimore police officer and then in the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq.  

“Law enforcement is on your side because you’ve been on their side at critical moments, and your family has dedicated a big part of their lives to law enforcement and you obviously believe it at your core,” Durbin said. “So the soft on crime charge, which leads all others, falls on its face.”

Wednesday will be the final day of questioning of Jackson. Democrats are optimistic she has the votes in the Senate and Durbin is still hoping she may get some GOP support. She had three GOP votes last year for her confirmation to the federal appellate court. 

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., left, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member, confer as Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson begins the final day of her confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Democrats have bemoaned that some questioning from GOP colleagues seemed more for show, rather than for substance. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told Jackson that a lot of questions have “nothing to do with your qualities of being on the Supreme Court” but rather for GOP senators seeking “a sound bite.”

Still Republicans are trying to pinpoint what exactly guides her judicial decisions before she receives a lifetime appointment to the court. 

“Senator, I do have a philosophy,” Jackson told Grassley Wednesday. “The philosophy is my methodology. It is a philosophy that I have developed from practice.”

The hearing Wednesday will continue well into the night again with each of the 22 members of the Judiciary Committee getting 20-minutes rounds of questions. 

Thursday’s hearing will feature testimony from outside groups and character witnesses, but not from Jackson herself. 

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