Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson hit out at the line of questioning from Republicans during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing Wednesday, telling Sen. Josh Hawley she “regret[s]” that he and his Republican colleagues focused on a “small subset” of her child pornography sentences.
In another bruising day of hearings that focused on sentences Republicans say were lenient, an exasperated Jackson said, “What I regret is that in a hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court, we have spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences …”
Jackson was replying to Hawley’s line of questioning asking if she regrets her decision in the 2013 case United States v. Hawkins, in which she sentenced an 18-year-old who had been in possession of about two dozen images and videos of sexual abuse of children to three months in prison when the prosecution recommended at least two years.
HAWLEY TAKES JACKSON TO TASK ON LENIENT CHILD PORN SENTENCING
Sen. Josh Hawley on a child pornography sentence: “Do you regret it?”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson: “What I regret is that in a hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court, we have spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences…” pic.twitter.com/8WrOpsLl83
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 23, 2022
Hawley then asked whether Jackson had used sentencing enhancements, to which Jackson argued she had already answered the question.
“Senator, I’ve answered this question many times from many senators who have already asked me, so I’ll stand on what I’ve already said,” Jackson said, adding that “no one case can stand in for my entire record.”
Last week, Hawley was the first to raise concerns over Jackson’s record, citing 10 cases in which she sentenced child pornography offenders below the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s recommended time, and many Republicans have since latched on to his line of criticism.
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But White House officials, along with the committee’s Democratic chairman, Dick Durbin, have vehemently disputed Hawley’s inquiry, saying, “It was discredited from the start. Every major news organization that has taken a look at his charges have said there’s no basis for it.”
“Unfortunately, it has set a tone which was much different than I expected and that I hoped for,” Durbin told reporters on Wednesday.
