WASHINGTON — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Tuesday pushed back on Republican attacks on her record, defending her work representing terror detainees and sentencing child sex abusers as she presented herself as a firm believer in judicial restraint fit to be confirmed to a seat on the Supreme Court.Under intense questioning from senators in a daylong hearing on her nomination, Judge Jackson said repeatedly that she understood the narrow role that judges played in American government and refused to be drawn into political fights such as whether seats should be added to the Supreme Court.“I am acutely aware that as a judge in our system, I have limited power, and I am trying in every case to stay in my lane,” she said, a formulation she repeated several times during hours of interrogation in what Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called a “trial by ordeal.”“I don’t think anyone can look at my record and say it is pointing in one direction or another, that it is supporting one viewpoint or another,” she told senators.While Republicans had initially been wary of the optics of attacking the first Black woman to be put forward for the Supreme Court, some G.O.P. members on the panel — particularly those with presidential ambitions — assailed Judge Jackson’s record in a series of tense exchanges in which they implied that she was soft on crime, particularly when it came to child sexual abuse, and an extremist on matters of race.Seeing an opening to score political points if not block her confirmation, they hit on midterm campaign themes that have become rallying cries for conservatives and their hard-right base, returning often to the subject of pedophilia, the central false allegation against Democrats that underlies the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon.Pointing to her writings about and sentencing of child sex offenders, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and a classmate of Judge Jackson at Harvard Law School, said he saw “a record of activism and advocacy that concerns sexual predators, that stems back decades and is concerning.”Democrats, independent analysts and some conservatives have found the Republican attacks on her record on child sex offenders to be distorted and misleading.Mr. Durbin sought to get ahead of the issue on Tuesday, opening the hearing by asking Judge Jackson what went through her mind on Monday as she sat and listened, with her family looking on, while a host of Republicans accused her of having coddled sex offenders in her rulings and sentencing recommendations. She used the moment to deliver an emphatic response that telegraphed some of her anger at those attacks.“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,” Judge Jackson responded. “These are some of the most difficult cases that a judge has to deal with, because we’re talking about sex abuse of children.”ImageRepublican senators, from left, John Cornyn of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesAnd she gave a lengthy explanation of how she arrived at sentences in such cases.“I impose a strict sentence and all of the additional restraints that are available in the law,” Judge Jackson said. “I am imposing all of those constraints because I understand how significant, how damaging, how horrible this crime is.”But the issue surfaced again later Tuesday, when Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, grilled her about her decision to sentence an 18-year-old defendant to three months of jail time for possession for images of child sexual abuse. Mr. Hawley, who has led the charge to attack Judge Jackson’s record on sentencing such offenders, repeatedly asked her why she gave the man a shorter sentence than the guidelines recommended.More Coverage of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Confirmation Hearings
Why She’s DifferentJudge Jackson’s time spent as a public defender makes her distinct from any current justice.Fact Check: Republican lawmakers have distorted the judge’s record on child sexual abuse cases and taken her quotes out of context.A Confirmation Pro: Judge Jackson knows her way around Senate confirmation hearings. She has successfully navigated three of them.An Eye on 2024: Four G.O.P. senators on the panel grilling Judge Jackson are known to have larger political aspirations.Judge Jackson, appearing exasperated, argued that Congress had required judges to take into account various factors, including the age of the defendant, and work with the probation office when sentencing defendants. And she insisted that a lighter penalty did not signal tolerance for child sex abuse.“As a judge who is a mom and has been tasked with theBy: Carl Hulse and Katie Rogers
Title: Pledging to ‘Stay in My Lane,’ Jackson Defends Her Record
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/us/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearing-republicans.html
Published Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:02:09 +0000
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