The two decisions that secured the right to abortion in America are established, Jackson said on day 2 of her hearings
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked about accusations by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri that her record as a judge shows that she has handed down lenient sentences to convicted child pornography defendants during her career. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois asked Jackson to tell the committee “what was going through your mind” when deciding sentencing during these types of cases.
Jackson began her response by telling the committee that “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” in regards to Hawley’s accusations.
“These are some of the most difficult cases that a judge has to deal with, because we’re talking about pictures of sex abuse of children, we’re talking about graphic descriptions that judges have to read and consider when they decide how to sentence in these cases, and there is a statute that tells judges what they’re supposed to do.”
Jackson told the committee that Congress has decided what it is that a judge has to do in these and any other cases when they sentence. “And that statute, that statute doesn’t say look only at the guidelines and stop, the statute doesn’t say impose the highest possible penalty for this sickening and egregious crime,” Jackson said. “The statute says calculate the guidelines, but also look at various aspects of this offense and impose a sentence that is, doesn’t say impose the highest possible penalty for this sickening and egregious crime.”
Jackson said that in every child pornography case “it is important to me to make sure that the children’s perspective, the children’s voices are represented in my sentencing.”
“And what that means is that for every defendant who comes before me, and who suggests as they often do that they’re just a looker, that these crimes don’t really matter, they collected these things on the internet and it’s fine, I tell them about the victim’s statements that have come in to me as a judge,” she said.
Judge Jackson said in the past victims have told her “that they will never have a normal adult relationship” and they have gone into prostitution, started using drugs, or developed agoraphobia and been unable to leave the house.
Jackson noted that in each of these cases where the defendants were found guilty she has imposed a significant sentence “and all of the additional restraints that are available in the law.”
“These people are looking at 20, 30, 40 years of supervision. They can’t use their computers in a normal way for decades. I am imposing all of those constraints because I understand how significant, how damaging, how horrible this crime is,” she said.
Some more context: Durbin noted during his remarks that the cases Hawley referred to yesterday during his statement “all resulted in incarceration of some magnitude.”
“One case, the Hilley case, I want to quote what you said on the record, this family has been torn apart, speaking to the defendant, by your criminal actions, you saw it on the faces of those women, you heard it in their voices and the impact of your acts on those very real victims who are still struggling to recover this day makes your crime among the most serious criminal offense this court has ever sentenced. And imposed a sentence of 29 1/2 years on that defendant.”
Durbin said the notion that Judge Jackson looks at child pornography cases “casually or with leniency” is belied by her record.
Last week, Hawley launched a Twitter thread charging that Jackson’s record reveals a “pattern” of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker. “This goes beyond ‘soft on crime,'” he charged.
The White House blasted Hawley for the attacks. A White House spokesman called the tweets “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.”
Durbin said Sunday that Hawley was “wrong” and “unfair” in his analysis.
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