It Si an Easy Process to for a Supreme Court Nominee to Be Confirmed by the Senate
Jackson vows in her opening remarks to be an independent judge who knows her 'limited role.'
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to serve on the Supreme Court, vowed to make the words inscribed on its edifice — "Equal Justice Under Law" — "a reality and not just an ideal" in opening remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.
Judge Jackson, 51, began by first thanking God, and then the people who had brought her to the threshold of history. She started with her parents, recalling her father's decision shortly after her birth to relocate from Florida to Washington, D.C., to escape racism and "experience new freedom."
She noted that the spirit of public service they instilled in their children led her into a judicial career and inspired her younger brother to join the Army after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He served two tours in the Middle East.
"I cannot possibly thank them enough for everything they've done for me," she said as they watched. "I love you, Mom and Dad."
Judge Jackson also reminded those watching the hearing that she, like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump in 2020, is the mother of school-aged children.
"I know it has not been easy as I've tried to navigate the challenges of juggling my career and motherhood," she told her two daughters.
Judge Jackson, who joked about her propensity for writing lengthy decisions, was notably economical in expressing her worldview and judicial philosophy.
In remarks that lasted just under 15 minutes, she committed to adopt a "neutral stance" if confirmed and promised to continue to produce expansive, "transparent" opinions so that "each litigant knows that the judge in their case has heard them, whether or not their arguments prevail."
Judge Jackson spoke late on Monday afternoon, after hours of alternating celebrations of her achievements by Democrats and probing attacks from Republican leaders, who have acknowledged they do not have the votes to stop her. One by one, they lobbed a range of criticisms, including her work on behalf of defendants in criminal cases and her seat on the board of a school that "pushes an anti-racist education program for white families," according to Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican from Tennessee.
Judge Jackson did not address any of those issues in her prepared remarks. She was attentive, however, to the more conventional conservative criticism that she would use her power on the high court to impose liberal policies, without appropriate judicial restraint.
"I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility, and my duty to be independent, very seriously," said Judge Jackson, who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
"I decide cases from a neutral posture," she added. "I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath. I know that my role as a judge is a limited one."
Judge Jackson, who sat impassively as senators made their speeches appeared at ease in a hearing room where she has successfully navigated three prior confirmations.
There is also a sense of the familiar about her proximity to the court: Judge Jackson served as a clerk for the man she hopes to replace, Justice Stephen Breyer, from 1999 to 2000.
"It is extremely humbling to be considered for Justice Breyer's seat," Judge Jackson said. "But if confirmed, I would hope to carry on his spirit. On the day of his Supreme Court nomination, Justice Breyer said, 'What is law supposed to do seen as a whole? It is supposed to allow all people to live together in a society where they have so many different views.'"
Senators acknowledge Jackson's historic nomination even as some reopen Kavanaugh grievances.
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court nomination process began on Monday morning with a recognition of how extraordinary a moment it was, and a bipartisan promise not to turn the proceedings into the sort of toxic spectacle that has characterized the modern Senate confirmation hearing.
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, pulled out a chair for Judge Jackson, the first Black woman in American history to be considered for a spot on the bench. Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the committee's chairman, said, "You're a living witness to the fact that in America all is possible."
"Not a single justice has been a Black woman. You can be the first," Mr. Durbin said. "It's not easy being the first. In some ways you have to be the best, in some ways the bravest."
But even as Democrats championed Judge Jackson's record, emphasizing her experience in the courtroom and her breadth of experience compared with current Supreme Court justices, the first moments of gentility gave way to Republicans on the committee who bitterly recalled personal attacks they and previous nominees had weathered, and suggested, without evidence, that she was more closely linked to progressive groups than she had previously indicated.
"There are a number of dark money groups on the left that argue federal judges should make policy decisions based on judges' own values," Mr. Grassley said in his opening statement. "I've talked about the troubling role of far-left dark money groups, like Demand Justice, have played in this administration's judicial selection process."
Judge Jackson has been confirmed by the Senate three times before.
Several Republicans also said that they would be closely examining her work as a public defender. In recent weeks, Republicans have tried to establish her time defending criminal defendants as evidence that she and other judicial appointees chosen by the Biden administration have inappropriately gone beyond giving a competent defense to clients accused of serious, sometimes vicious crimes.
According to two people familiar with the process White House officials took to prepare Judge Jackson, she was anticipating lines of criticism that involved her work as a public defender. She has been sharply questioned by Republicans for her work representing detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay.
"As someone who has deep respect for the adversarial system of justice, I understand the importance of zealot advocacy," Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, told Judge Jackson in his opening statement. "But it appears sometimes this advocacy has gone beyond the pale and in some instances it appears your advocacy has bled over into your decision-making process as a judge."
Judge Jackson smiled through the opening statements after she took her seat under the klieg lights. Behind her sat a mix of people who prepared her for her latest appearance, including Dana Remus, the White House counsel, who recently has led almost-daily mock hearing sessions with Judge Jackson.
Throughout his opening statement, Mr. Durbin repeatedly emphasized that her appointment by President Biden was historic and meaningful. "You're a living witness to the fact that in America all is possible," he said. Her judicial record, he added, displayed a command of the facts and relevant legal materials and should be enough to secure a bipartisan vote.
"There may be some who claim, without a shred of evidence," Mr. Durbin said, "that you will be some kind of rubber stamp for the president." Mr. Durbin said that her record had been scoured, and any criticism would ignore her qualifications. "I have four words: Look at the record. Your complete record has been scoured by this committee on four different occasions."
Mr. Grassley was one of several Republicans who said on Monday that they were intent on not turning the hearing process into a "circus" they associate with the politically toxic Senate confirmation hearings of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in 2018. During that time, Judge Kavanaugh had been accused by Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist, of sexual assault decades ago, when they were both high school students in the Washington suburbs. On Monday, several Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, attempted to lump those accusations into theatrical personal attacks: "No one is going to inquire into your teenage dating habits," Mr. Cruz said.
"We will not turn this into a spectacle based upon alleged process fouls," Mr. Grassley told her, a reference to what he said were multiple interruptions during his introductory statement during Judge Kavanaugh's hearing. "What we will do, however, is ask tough questions about Judge Jackson's judicial philosophy."
Mr. Grassley said that Republicans were sure to have questions about her work on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a high-profile bench she joined last year and a frequent staging ground for Supreme Court justices. In Judge Jackson's eight months on the appeals court, she issued just two majority opinions.
As Republicans prepare to grill Jackson, they are re-litigating Kavanaugh's confirmation battle.
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Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina used his opening statement at the Supreme Court confirmation hearing to air lingering grievances over the treatment of Brett M. Kavanaugh, in an apparent effort to justify Republicans' tough questioning of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and rebut suggestions that challenging the first Black woman nominated to the court amounted to racism.
Mr. Graham seized on Justice Kavanaugh's explosive confirmation hearings in 2018 as an example of unfair treatment of a Supreme Court nominee, asserting that Judge Jackson was already being afforded more respect and could expect a more civil tone in four days of hearings this week.
"None of us are going to do that to you," said Mr. Graham, referring to Justice Kavanaugh's hearings. He noted that Republicans could not even get through an opening statement in those proceedings before being interrupted by liberal activists.
Judge Jackson has never been accused of committing sexual assault, as Justice Kavanaugh was during his confirmation hearings. Christine Blasey Ford said the judge had sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers, an allegation that Justice Kavanaugh vehemently denied. As the process drew to a close, Mr. Graham delivered a fiery speech to the Senate Judiciary Committee denouncing Democrats' tactics as "the most unethical sham since I've been in politics."
The treatment of Mr. Kavanaugh evidently still grates on Mr. Graham and many Republicans, and by invoking that fight more than three years ago, they appeared to be seeking some political cover for challenging Judge Jackson, even if the circumstances of the two nominations were not remotely comparable.
Republicans, who were initially concerned about prompting a backlash if they attacked Judge Jackson too sharply, have adopted an increasingly aggressive approach in recent days and want to portray her as soft on crime, one of their central attack lines against Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.
Senator Charles A. Grassley, the committee's ranking Republican, kicked off the hearings by saying the goal was to avoid "a spectacle."
"We will be fair and thorough, as people would expect us to be, but we won't get down in the gutter like Democrats did during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings," Mr. Grassley said in his opening statement. "I'm sure you folks remember how bad that got."
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, went even further, minimizing Ms. Ford's accusations to the vanishing point.
"No one is going to inquire about your teenage dating habits," he told Judge Jackson.
None of the Republicans mentioned their treatment of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama's 2016 Supreme Court pick, whose nomination they blockaded for eight months to deny Mr. Obama the opportunity to fill the court vacancy before leaving office.
Judge Jackson's hearings, unlike Judge Kavanaugh's, will be focused at least in part on the issue of race, which Mr. Graham addressed in unusually unvarnished language on Monday.
He noted that Democrats had opposed judicial nominees of color appointed by Republicans, couching their objections as matters of political and legal philosophy.
"Bottom line here is, it is about philosophy when it's someone of color on our side — it's about we're all racist if we ask hard questions," said Mr. Graham, a former chairman of the committee.
"It's not going to fly with us," added Mr. Graham.
The senator, who has already signaled his opposition to Judge Jackson's nomination, went on to criticize President Biden for not selecting J. Michelle Childs, a federal judge from his state who is also Black, instead of Judge Jackson.
A day of excitement for Jackson's supporters as history unfolds on Capitol Hill.
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas held up her phone to record as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey spoke about the sheer joy he felt on the historic first day of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearings, one that he called, simply, "not a normal day for America."
Ms. Lee had no formal role in the proceedings, and the House of Representatives was out of session. She was simply attending as a supporter witnessing history.
"We're not supposed to do this," Ms. Lee said to Judge Jackson during a brief break, approaching her for a handshake. "But I'm so proud of you."
The excitement of two Black members of Congress, both Democrats, underscored a strange duality of the day. History was unfolding as the Senate opened its hearings to confirm the first Black woman to the nation's highest court. But at the same time, there was a somber mood to the proceedings.
Judge Jackson's background and experience — she was rated "well qualified" for the job by the American Bar Association — made it difficult to assail her fitness for the job. Her confirmation would not change the ideological composition of the court, which is tilted 6-3 toward conservatives, and still would be if she were confirmed to succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer, a liberal who has announced he will step down when the current term ends this summer. And Republicans have promised a more dignified review than has unfolded in the past.
But the lack of political drama on Day 1 — when Judge Jackson's role was mostly to sit silently and listen to long statements read by senators — didn't take away from the excitement among her supporters in the room.
The witness section of the audience was filled with mostly Black faces, including White House officials, elected officials, family members of Judge Jackson and a handful of attorneys, many of whom watched with glassy eyes when Judge Jackson gave her opening remarks at the end of a long day.
Janette McCarthy Wallace, the general counsel for the N.A.A.C.P., who attended the hearing, said she was "overjoyed" to be in a room where history was unfolding. She said she came prepared for the criticisms from Republicans, who said they planned to drill down on Judge Jackson's background as a public defender.
"I think that they are distractions from the basic fact that this is a person who is qualified to sit on this bench and who should be the next Supreme Court justice," she said.
To Judge Jackson's immediate right sat Dana Remus, the White House counsel, who had led her through near-daily prep sessions, often called murder boards, as the hearings drew closer. Ms. Remus sat next to former Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, who has served as Judge Brown's "sherpa" through her courtesy calls on Capitol Hill.
Ben Jealous, a civil rights leader and the former president of the N.A.A.C.P., also sat in the audience, along with Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who is Black. "First I got chills, then I started to tear up," she said after the hearings ended. Ms. Rochester stayed late to photograph Judge Jackson's nameplate and her empty seat under the klieg lights.
Also in attendance was Minyon Moore, another adviser to Judge Jackson, who was the first Black woman to serve as a political director in the White House during the Clinton administration.
During the hearing, Judge Jackson was flanked by her husband, Dr. Patrick Graves Jackson, who wiped away tears from his eyes during Judge Jackson's opening statement, and her two daughters. The judge's parents and brother also sat nearby, and she said her in-laws and her husband's twin brother also came to support her.
Asked what she expected from Judge Jackson's remarks, Ms. Wallace had one word: "Brilliance."
Jackson has passed the Senate's confirmation test three times before.
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson knows her way around Senate confirmation hearings. She has successfully navigated three of them, the most recent one less than a year ago. When members of the Senate Judiciary Committee question her this week, they will be facing a seasoned pro.
Based on her smooth performance in April in connection with her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Jackson has mastered the playbook. She knows how to be cordial and noncommittal, to demonstrate mastery of legal materials while avoiding expressing even a hint of an opinion about them.
She has also demonstrated a nimble ability to reframe questions. Last year, for instance, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, invited her to take sides in the debate over whether the meaning of the Constitution was fixed when it was adopted and ratified.
"Do you believe we have a living Constitution?" he asked.
"I believe," she responded, "that the Constitution is an enduring document."
She was also gracious and capable at hearings on her nominations to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2009 and to the Federal District Court in Washington in 2012. She was confirmed to the first two positions by voice vote and to the appeals court by a vote of 53 to 44, with three Republicans supporting her nomination.
In her previous hearings, she has followed the playbook established by her predecessors: not giving answers to questions seen as too specific, saying that could forecast a possible ruling. And she likewise declined to answer questions that were too general, saying that judges should not opine on hypothetical abstractions.
Asked about proposals to expand the size of the Supreme Court, she said, "I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on the structure or the size of the court any more than it would be for me to comment on the court's rulings."
About the scope of presidential power: "I'm unfortunately not going to be able to engage in a hypothetical discussion."
Who is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson?
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, is appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week after being nominated by President Biden to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement earlier this year.
Education
Much of Judge Jackson's early career was informed by experiences as a student at Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where she confronted questions of race and identity within the most elite circles of higher education. She earned her law degree in 1996.
Professional history
After graduation, she held three clerkships with federal judges, including in 1999 as a clerk to Justice Breyer, who she is now under consideration to succeed more than 20 years later.
From 2005-2007 she also worked as a federal public defender, a role in which she helped Khi Ali Gul, an Afghan detainee held at Guantánamo Bay, petition for his release. If confirmed, Judge Jackson would be the modern court's first justice with experience as a public defender.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has spent much of her career in Washington, serving as a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2013 to 2021, and currently the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She replaced Merrick B. Garland, who joined the Justice Department as Attorney General, on the Court of Appeals last year, and was confirmed by a vote of 53-44.
As a federal judge in Washington, Judge Jackson has presided over several politically charged cases. In 2017, she sentenced the gunman who stormed a Washington pizzeria targeted by "Pizzagate" conspiracy theorists to four years in prison. She also ruled in 2019 that Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, would be required to testify before House impeachment investigators considering articles of impeachment against President Donald J. Trump.
Personal life
Judge Jackson is married to Dr. Patrick Graves Jackson, a surgeon who she met while studying at Harvard. They have two daughters.
She is also related by marriage to a former House Speaker and Republican vice-presidential nominee, Paul Ryan. His sister-in-law, Dana Little Jackson, is married to Dr. Jackson's twin brother, William Jackson.
Here's how Judge Jackson's hearings will unfold and what to expect.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday kicked off a historic set of hearings on President Biden's nominee for the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who would be the first Black woman to serve there.
The proceedings will introduce Judge Jackson, who currently sits on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to much of the country, and give senators a high-profile opportunity to question her on matters of law and policy.
Here's how it will unfold and what to keep an eye on.
At 11 a.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee began the hearing, which is taking place in a cavernous room outfitted in white marble and wood paneling near the Capitol. Senators took turns making opening statements, and Judge Jackson delivered her own remarks.
The hearings are very likely to end in Judge Jackson's confirmation; Democrats can confirm her without a single Republican vote if they stay united. But they would like some G.O.P. support, and Monday's session will signal how aggressively Republicans plan to question her, an early indicator of her chances of winning anyone over. Republicans have conceded it is a sensitive situation, considering that her confirmation is likely and they are loath to be seen as piling on against a woman of color with a gold-plated legal résumé and a reputation as a solid jurist.
Watch for several likely lines of Republican attack. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, has made it clear he wants Judge Jackson to state whether she would support adding seats to the court, as some progressive activists want. Republicans will also press her on her representation of terror detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and her work as a public defender in general. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, has raised questions about her sentencing of those accused of sex crimes involving children. Abortion rights are also certain to come up.
Senators will be probing to see how Judge Jackson responds when pressed. Does she remain composed? Do her answers address the questions? Does she have understandable responses to complex issues? How much is she willing to reveal of her judicial philosophy? Temperament is part of the judicial character and carries weight in the confirmation process. In recent decades, nominees have grown increasingly reticent about their views during their confirmation hearings, usually declining to prejudge any issues that might come before the court. But that will not stop senators from asking.
Senators will dig into Judge Jackson's judicial record, including some rulings she handed down as a Federal District Court judge that were overturned on appeal, such as a decision restraining a Trump administration immigration policy.
Republicans are also taking aim at Judge Jackson's service on the United States Sentencing Commission, a federal panel formed to review sentencing guidelines and recommend changes to increase transparency and reduce disparities. They say that she favored sentence reductions, but other members of the bipartisan commission say the recommendations were settled by consensus.
All eyes will be on how Judge Jackson sells herself for the job, both to the committee and to the American public. She and her Democratic supporters want her to come across as an exceptionally qualified woman who belongs on a court that has been lacking in diverse voices. Democrats point to her endorsement by law enforcement groups and conservative judicial colleagues as strong evidence that she should win bipartisan support. If Judge Jackson does a compelling job laying out her life story, she could make it more difficult for Republicans to challenge her even as most of them intend to oppose her.
Jackson's work as a public defender is a Republican target.
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The president's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, is a target of a Republican effort to vilify and discredit Biden administration judicial nominees who have served as public defenders, by suggesting that they acted inappropriately in representing clients accused of serious crimes.
Judge Jackson, a former public defender, has been sharply questioned by Republicans for her work representing detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay. In a background paper on her nomination for the high court, the Republican National Committee referred to Judge Jackson's "advocacy for these terrorists" as "going beyond just giving them a competent defense."
On Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, said in a floor speech that Judge Jackson had strong backing from progressive groups partially because of her history as a public defender, saying "the soft-on-crime brigade is squarely in Judge Jackson's corner."
Democrats say the tactic ignores a fundamental principle of the American justice system — that everyone has the constitutional right to be represented by counsel — and in effect seeks to disqualify from the bench anyone who has taken that obligation seriously when it comes to the accused.
The Republican strategy is a response to a concerted push by the Biden administration to diversify the federal bench. The president, who himself served briefly as a public defender early in his legal career, is actively seeking to name more jurists who have experience in criminal defense work, as well as more people of color.
It is a sea change in the world of judicial nominations, where presidents of both political parties have long shied away from defense attorneys for fear of such political attacks, instead selecting tough-on-crime prosecutors. The type of high-profile murder cases handled by some of Mr. Biden's nominees would have been considered disqualifying only a few years ago.
The nomination of Judge Jackson, who would be the first public defender and the first Black woman to sit on the high court, will be the biggest test yet of whether a lawyer who represented accused criminals can draw broad Republican support. Her defense work and membership on a commission that reviewed sentencing guidelines will no doubt draw scrutiny during the upcoming hearing.
The first Black woman nominated to the court carefully tread a treacherous path while at Harvard.
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In almost every other way, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson fits into the conventional mold of so many Supreme Court justices nominated before her — a widely admired, Harvard-educated overachiever with a respected record as a federal judge.
But she is going where no Black woman has ever gone in American history — a carefully tread path, sometimes through dangerous or inhospitable territory, that has led her to these Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
When a Confederate flag was hung from the window of a dormitory at Harvard University more than 30 years ago, members of the Black Students Association saw it as an attempt to tell them they did not belong there.
They sprang into action, "being vocal, agitating, militating, marching, doing all that great stuff," Antoinette Coakley, one of the students, recalled recently. But the voice of another member — Ketanji Brown, a classmate who was soon to become one of Ms. Coakley's best friends — cut through the noise.
"Ketanji said: 'Wait a minute, as we're doing this, we're missing out on classes. As we're fighting against this injustice, we're actually doing them a service because we're going to be failing,'" Ms. Coakley, now a law professor at Northeastern University, recalled.
"So we protested, but we made sure we were in class," she added. "We were going to show them that by showing up the way that we did — excellently — that they were wrong."
Ms. Coakley and other longtime friends from Harvard said the reaction of their classmate, now Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, was emblematic of how she navigated one of the most elite and white institutions in the country — after being discouraged from even applying. In the end, her experience at Harvard illustrates how Judge Jackson, 51, has long recognized how America's conflicting views of race and justice shape the world around her. She has embraced her identity while refusing to let affronts to it distract her.
Republicans are claiming misleadingly that Jackson was uncommonly lenient on sex offenders.
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One of the lines of attack previewed by Republicans in an effort to undermine Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is the charge that she treated felons convicted of possessing child pornography and other sex offenders with uncommon leniency both as a judge and as a member of the federal commission that reviews prison terms.
But a look at her record and the account of at least one conservative jurist who served with her suggest that the claims — leveled by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, as part of a larger campaign to portray Judge Jackson as soft on crime — are misleading.
In a lengthy Twitter thread last week, Mr. Hawley suggested that, as a member of the sentencing commission, she worked to reduce penalties for those caught with child pornography. A detailed background paper prepared for the Judiciary Committee made a similar case.
But a prominent Republican-appointed jurist who served on the United States Sentencing Commission with Judge Jackson, Judge William H. Pryor Jr., the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, said that the panel's recommendations were almost uniformly supported by all its members — conservative and liberal — as the panel sought to eliminate disparities and improve sentencing.
"We worked by consensus, and that is the tradition of the sentencing commission," Judge Pryor, a conservative Alabama native, said in an interview. "Virtually all of our votes were unanimous and data-driven."
The White House and Senate Democrats note that the bipartisan sentencing recommendations the commission made during Judge Jackson's tenure were ultimately accepted by Congress.
Republican leaders, wary of engaging in a potentially racially charged spectacle, have been toeing a fine line in their criticism of the nominee — hoping to hammer away at poll-tested law-and-order themes that will be used in the coming midterm elections, but without prompting a backlash among Black voters.
Yet in recent days their tone has shifted, and sharpened.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, has repeatedly suggested that Judge Jackson's experience as a public defender could influence her view of the law and lead her to favor criminal defendants.
And last week, in his Twitter thread, Mr. Hawley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and will question Judge Jackson, claimed that his review of her judicial record had determined that she had been lenient in sentencing some sex offenders and those convicted of possessing child pornography.
Administration and Senate officials say that Judge Jackson's sentences in pornography cases were at or above recommendations from probation officials, and comparable to what other federal judges were handing down under guidelines that were considered badly outdated. They also point to her strong support from law enforcement groups and prominent police officials.
Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, called Mr. Hawley's allegations "toxic and weakly presented misinformation that relies on taking cherry-picked elements of her record out of context — and it buckles under the lightest scrutiny."
Jackson's rulings have been detailed, methodical and left-leaning.
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If Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden's Supreme Court pick, is confirmed, she will almost immediately confront a docket for its next term filled with polarizing issues, including the fate of affirmative action in higher education, the role race should play in drawing voting districts and whether businesses open to the public may discriminate against gay couples on religious grounds.
A review of a substantial sample of Judge Jackson's roughly 500 judicial opinions suggests that she would be about as liberal as the member of the court she hopes to replace, Justice Stephen G. Breyer. That would make her a reliable member of what would continue to be a three-member liberal minority on a court that is dominated by six conservative justices.
Judge Jackson has a substantial judicial track record, having served on federal courts longer than several of the current justices had when they were appointed. But the great bulk of her opinions are from her eight years on the Federal District Court in Washington, as a trial judge, before Mr. Biden elevated her in June to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Those opinions are diligent and exceptionally thorough, exhibiting a sure command of both the facts before her and the relevant legal materials. But they are often less illuminating than appeals court rulings that establish precedents and bind other judges.
In Judge Jackson's eight months on the appeals court, she has issued just two majority opinions, and they have been crisp and forceful.
Among the cases that have attracted significant attention, she sat on a three-judge panel of the appeals court that decided in December to reject former President Donald J. Trump's assertion of executive privilege over the release of White House records concerning the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to a House committee. On the district court, too, Judge Jackson ruled against Mr. Trump and his allies on several occasions.
Here's how Supreme Court confirmations evolved into political standoffs.
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How Supreme Court Confirmations Became Partisan Spectacles
Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees didn't always exist. But the 19th Amendment, school desegregation and television all contributed to major changes in the process.
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"Please raise your right hand." These are the Supreme Court confirmation hearings — "This is day two." — you're probably all familiar with. "Bigly." "You just said 'bigly.'" "Bigly." Big partisan productions — "A charade and a mockery." "Anything else you want to say, Judge Bork?" — that dominate the headlines and the airwaves. This is how they used to be. [crickets] Yeah, there actually weren't any. So how did we get from here — [crickets] — to here? We'll start in 1937 with former Senator Hugo Black, who's being congratulated. That's because he's just been confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. He's also been outed as a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. So to explain himself, he gets on the radio. "I did join the Klan. I later resigned. I never rejoined." People are not happy. They're basically asking: How could the Senate Judiciary Committee let this guy through? Answer: Since the first hearing back in 1873, for this guy, there were no standard ways of holding hearings for Supreme Court nominees. They didn't have to go and testify, and the hearings didn't need to be made public. The senators reviewed the nominees among themselves. But then came a couple of amendments to the Constitution. The upshot is they gave more voting power to the people. So the senators needed to start paying more attention to public opinion. And they're paying attention when Black's controversial confirmation drives Americans to ask: Why are these hearings private? It's a big reason why the next nominee to come along gets a public hearing. And it's not just a public hearing, it's the first that includes no-holds-barred questioning by the committee. Things are beginning to change. Then World War II comes, and goes. America is suddenly a superpower. Business booms, suburbs grow. "The protest took the form of a boycott." And we see the beginning of the modern civil-rights era. In 1954, the court rules to end racial segregation in schools. And this marks a point where we really start to see the court using its power to shape parts of American society. That means Americans take a greater interest in who is on the court. That means even more pressure on senators to vet these candidates. Starting with the first nominee after the Brown decision, almost every nominee will have a public hearing. Now change is in full swing. "I Have a Dream," the march from Selma, "The Feminine Mystique." The court keeps making controversial rulings on race discrimination, gender discrimination, personal privacy. That means more public interest, more pressure on senators, more issues to parse in the hearings. So the hearings get longer. But just wait. 1981 — game changer. "Good evening. Sandra O'Connor —" First woman nominated to the Supreme Court, first nomination hearing to be televised. The longer senators talk, the more TV time they get. The more TV time they get, the more they can posture for voters watching at home. [senators talking] So the more they talk. With the cameras rolling, we'll see 10 out of the 12 longest hearings ever. One of those is for Robert Bork — "With a negative recommendation of 9 to 5." — who famously doesn't make the cut. Now onto the aughts. There's an 11-year gap between nominees. Meanwhile, America has become more politically divided, so has the Senate. "Over and over again —" "Wait just a second —" "How many times do we do this before —" Here's Chief Justice Roberts to explain what happened next. "I mean, you look at two of my colleagues, Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg, for example. Maybe there were two or three dissenting votes between the two of them." Yep, three votes against Ginsburg in 1993. No votes against Scalia in 1986. "Now you look at my more recent colleagues and the votes were, I think, strictly on party lines." That's pretty much right. "And that doesn't make any sense." And that's how we got here. "I'm not looking to take us back to quill pens." Very long — "Nah, I just asked you where you were at on Christmas." [laughter] Always very political — "So your failure to answer questions is confounding me." — very public Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Also, something else to notice: Sometimes these nominees give pretty similar answers. "The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways." "And it protects the right to privacy in a number of ways." "In various places in the Constitution." "In a variety of places in the Constitution." "It's protected by the Fourth Amendment." "The Fourth Amendment certainly speaks to the right of privacy." "It's founded in the Fourth Amendment." "The first and most obvious place is the Fourth Amendment."
Modern confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees have become divisive and intensely political affairs, often held as senators face immense public pressure to stand with or against the nominees.
It hasn't always been this way.
For much of the United States' history, senators vetted nominees in private with little fanfare, and nominees all but avoided public scrutiny of their backgrounds or judicial philosophies.
But a number of trends in American politics, including growing enfranchisement and ballooning political polarization, have turned the hearings into the spectacles they are often known as today.
With senators more primed to appeal to their political bases, and interest groups lobbying to shape the ideological balance of the court, hearings have frequently devolved into partisan showdowns.
As Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson appears before lawmakers on Monday, her confirmation hearings may be no different.
Jackson's view of criminal justice was shaped by family experience with policing.
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If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson would bring a wide and deep range of experiences with the criminal justice system to the bench — some of which come from her family.
When she was a college student, one of her uncles was sentenced to life in prison on cocaine charges. But another one of her uncles was the chief of police in Miami. A third uncle was a sex-crimes detective. And her brother worked for a time as a police officer in Baltimore.
Judge Jackson herself has long demonstrated an interest in criminal justice. Her undergraduate senior thesis at Harvard College in 1992 criticized the plea bargaining system. It was titled "The Hand of Oppression: Plea Bargaining Processes and the Coercion of Criminal Defendants."
Early in her legal career, she worked as a staff member at the United States Sentencing Commission, and in 2009, President Barack Obama nominated her to be a member of the commission. During her tenure, it made a bipartisan decision to back retroactively reducing some sentences for past crack cocaine convictions.
She also served as an assistant public defender in the District of Columbia from February 2005 until June 2007. There, she mostly specialized in appeals. No sitting Supreme Court justice has a background in public defense.
During her previous confirmations to join the district court and then an appeals court, Judge Jackson talked about her police officer relatives — though not the uncle who went to prison — while parrying questions about whether her past suggested she might be unduly sympathetic to criminals.
"Having lawyers who can set aside their own personal beliefs about their client's alleged behavior or their client's propensity to commit crimes benefits all persons in the United States," she wrote in response to a senator's question, "because it incentivizes the government to investigate accusations thoroughly and to protect the rights of the accused during the criminal justice process."
In the aggregate, she added, that "reduces the threat of arbitrary or unfounded deprivations of individual liberty."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/21/us/ketanji-brown-jackson-supreme-court
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