Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is part of President Biden’s effort to appoint federal judges who are soft on crime.
“President Biden is deliberately working to make the whole federal judiciary softer on crime,” the Kentucky Republican said in remarks on the Senate floor. “Even liberals admit as much; they just applaud it. But with murders and carjackings skyrocketing nationwide, I doubt the American people feel the same way.”
Judge Jackson, a former public defender, will begin her confirmation hearing on Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She would be the first Black woman on the high court.
Mr. McConnell said the hearing will be a “serious, dignified process.” But he criticized liberals for calling attention to Judge Jackson’s empathy as a positive qualification for the Supreme Court.
“It’s unsettling that senior Democrats have lauded Judge Jackson for the ‘empathy’ they suggest shapes her judicial approach,” he said. “Liberals are saying that Judge Jackson’s service as a criminal defense lawyer and then on the U.S. Sentencing Commission gives her special empathy for convicted criminals. Her supporters look at her resume and deduce a special empathy for criminals. I guess that means that government prosecutors and innocent crime victims start each trial at a disadvantage.”
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said Judge Jackson “is deeply qualified for the Supreme Court — as Sen. McConnell affirmed after meeting with her — and her record and approach to cases is defined by respect for our Constitution and nonideological neutrality.”
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The White House also noted that dozens of top police officials from around the country signed a letter this month endorsing Judge Jackson’s nomination.
Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said his review of Judge Jackson’s record shows an alarming pattern of lenient treatment of sex offenders who abuse children.
“Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker,” Mr. Hawley tweeted. “She’s been advocating for it since law school. This goes beyond ‘soft on crime.’ I’m concerned that this is a record that endangers our children.”
Mr. Hawley cited several of Judge Jackson’s writings dating back to law school, including an occasion in which she wrote that sex-offender status can cause “stigmatization and ostracism,” and that public policy toward sex offenders is driven by a “climate of fear, hatred & revenge.”
“It gets worse,” Mr. Hawley wrote. “As a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Judge Jackson advocated [in 2012] for drastic change in how the law treats sex offenders by eliminating the existing mandatory minimum sentences for child porn.”
He tweeted, “This is a disturbing record for any judge, but especially one nominated to the highest court in the land. Protecting the most vulnerable shouldn’t be up for debate. Sending child predators to jail shouldn’t be controversial.”
Mr. Bates called the accusations “toxic and weakly presented misinformation that relies on taking cherry-picked elements of her record out of context — and it buckles under the slightest scrutiny.”
“It’s based on a report unanimously agreed to by all of the Republicans on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, on selectively presenting a short transcript excerpt in which Judge Jackson was quoting a witness’s testimony back to them to ask a question, and failing to note what sentencing practices are across the entire federal judiciary regarding these crimes,” Mr. Bates said. “In the overwhelming majority of her cases involving child sex crimes, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. Probation recommended.”
He called Judge Jackson “a proud mother of two whose nomination has been endorsed by leading law enforcement organizations, conservative judges, and survivors of crime.”
Service as a public defender doesn’t disqualify a nominee, Mr. McConnell said.
“It’s an important role. But as The New York Times reported this week, the Biden administration is on an intentional quest to stuff the federal judiciary full of this one perspective,” he said. “Even amid a national crime wave, a disproportionate share of the new judges President Biden has nominated share this professional background that liberals say gives judges special empathy for criminal defendants.”
Mr. McConnell said, “I look forward to learning more about how Judge Jackson believes her service as a criminal defense attorney leads her to interpret the text of our laws and our Constitution differently than other judges. If any judicial nominee really does have special empathy for some parties over others, that’s not an asset. It’s a problem.”
Judge Jackson has served on the federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia since last June. The Senate has confirmed her twice for judgeships, also confirming her nomination in 2013 for a district court seat in Washington.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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