Anyone watching the current Supreme Court confirmation hearings might think they’re in an alternate universe. Compared to the most recent spectacles during President Trump’s term in office, there are few similarities.
The confirmation hearings for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were a liberal lynching of two outstanding nominations. While Republicans have asked tough questions of Joe Biden’s nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, the proceedings have at least been civil.
Democrats would do well to take notes on how to act with professional integrity. Nonetheless, Brown Jackson was pressed on contentious judicial points arising during her judicial career. The questions were presented in a straight-forward, albeit hardline manner.
Republicans did not attack her like Democrats verbally assaulted the two conservative nominees. However, the questions must be answered. Brown Jackson is clearly a liberal-leaning judge whose judicial ideology must be explored.
Brown Jackson’s seemingly lenient stance against crime is a foremost consideration. One specific area exposed a baffling set of lax sentences she handed down in child p**n cases. Many Republicans had serious questions about these uncharacteristically weak sentences.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz pushed the issue the hardest. Senator Cruz actually led off the first round of questioning. Ironically, Cruz attended Harvard Law School during the same period that Brown Jackson was a student there.
While professional in tone and manner, Cruz still grilled her about this series of extremely weak sentences. Cruz stressed that in every one of her child p**nography cases, her sentences were not only light, but they also contradicted the prosecution’s requested jail time.
Senator Cruz followed Republican Josh Hawley’s opening remarks. Hawley eluded to this issue in his statement. However, Cruz pushed open the door with hard questions. The Texas Senator pointed out that Brown Jackson had given the bare minimum sentence in 10 out of 10 cases.
The jail time was far below even what the prosecution asked for in the case. Even more baffling was the amount she reduced the sentences. In every case, her sentence was nearly half of what the prosecution recommended.
Cruz quickly summed up the reason for his persistence. He wanted to know if Brown Jackson felt as if her weak sentences were doing enough to protect vulnerable children. The senator clearly questioned her dedication to protecting victims who are being exploited.
This one example troubled him most. Senator Cruz asked her a pointblank question. “Do you believe the voice of the children is heard when 100% of the time you’re sentencing those in possession of child p**nography to far below what the prosecutor’s asking for?”
All Brown Jackson could say in her defense was baffling at best. She replied, “I take these cases very seriously as a mother.” That sounds nice on tape, but it doesn’t line up with the lenient sentences she gave to these creepy child predators.
Ted Cruz pulls out his white board to illustrate how in child pornography cases, Ketanji Brown Jackson gave the defendants an average 47.2% less sentence than what the prosecutors recommended. pic.twitter.com/7VUnbdAg2E
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 22, 2022
There’s a bigger picture here as well. The lenient sentencing against child predators indicates a clear liberal ideology. These types of questions will be part of her responsibility if she earns a place on the “highest court in the land”.
They must be answered. Thus far, Brown Jackson’s answers are not worthy of a lifetime appointment to the most important judicial seat in the United States. Unless her answers radically shift, she is not worthy of a single Republican vote.
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