WATCH: Marsha Blackburn Says Ketanji Brown Jackson Must Explain Release of Violent Criminals During COVID
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) addressed the opening day of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson Monday by questioning her decisions as a federal district judge to release violent criminals during COVID.
Sen. Blackburn had previously signaled her focus in an interview on Fox News: “She would’ve let 1,500 prisoners go during COVID. Among the ones she let go were a murderer, [and] a bank robber. These are hardened criminals back on the streets.”
In the hearing, Blackburn was even more direct in her criticism, alleging that the judge was partial toward criminals and terrorists:
At the start of the pandemic, you advocated, and again I wrote, for “each and every criminal defendant in the D.C. Department of Corrections custody should be released.” That would have been 1500 criminals back on the street if you had had your way. And you used the COVID-19 pandemic as justification to release a fentanyl drug dealer, a bank robber addicted to heroin, and a convict who murdered a U.S. Marshal into our communities. But your efforts to protect convicts began before the pandemic. You used your time and talent, not to serve our nation’s veterans or other vulnerable groups, but to provide free legal services to help terrorists get out of Gitmo and go back to the fight.
Blackburn said that Judge Jackson had supported “restrictions on children and families, and freedom for criminals.”
Sen. Blackburn connected Judge Jackson’s record to the ongoing crime wave in Democrat-run cities nationwide. She also echoed criticism by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) about Judge Jackson’s allegedly soft sentences for convicted sex offenders.
Republicans were generally muted in their approach on the first day of the hearings, which was largely devoted to opening statements. Judge Jackson also struck a bipartisan tone with a heartfelt speech in which she thanked God and her family.
But several Senators indicated that they would raise tough questions about her record. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he wanted to know why so many left-wing groups preferred Judge Jackson to Judge Michelle Childs of South Carolina, his home state, who was the preferred candidate of Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), a key political ally of President Joe Biden.
Sen. Hawley was measured in his tone, but indicated that he intended to pursue questions about sentencing for sex offenders. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) flagged Judge Jackson’s documented past support for Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter, and noted that he would raise the question of radical left-wing prosecutors who are backed by left-wing donor George Soros.
Graham and others were at pains to distinguish the civil behavior of Republicans from the violent protests and inflammatory accusations that Democrats had used during the confirmation hearings of Republican nominees like Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Ketanji Brown Jackson College Thesis Argued Judges Have ‘Personal Hidden Agendas’
Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s 1992 Harvard University thesis argued that court officials, including judges, have “personal hidden agendas,” which may raise questions about her alleged tendency to be soft on criminals as a federal district court judge.
Jackson’s thesis, “‘The Hand of Oppression”: Plea Bargaining Processes and the Coercion of Criminal Defendants,” argued that defendants sometimes are “being coerced into relinquishing their constitutional rights as a prerequisite for sentencing consideration” through the use of plea bargains.
Jackson wrote:
There is a chance that the very institution which is designed to dispense justice and to protect individual rights could be the most guilty of creating injustices in its effort to make criminal adjudication economical and efficient. This thesis will examine guilty plea negotiations in modern criminal courts in the United States, and will argue that, as they currently operate, plea bargaining processes are both coercive and unacceptable.
In her thesis, Jackson argues that it is necessary to examine the motivations, or “hidden agendas,” that underlie the attempts to “get the accused to waive their constitutional rights” through plea bargains.
Jackson wrote, “We must endeavor to identify the ‘motivation of individual decision makers exercising delegating authority’ both as support for the assertion that the process is pressure-laden (Chapter Two), and as a premise for the argument that the pressures themselves are unacceptably coercive (Chapters Five and Six).”
She then claims that court actors, including judges, have “personal motives” for wanting to resolve cases by plea bargaining and for acting upon that desire.” She claims that court officials, including judges, have “personal hidden agendas:”
It is possible that “[t]he people who run the criminal justice process and the decisions that they make are more likely to serve their interest rather than the system’s clients.” Within a social institution of such tremendous power and influence, statutorial and ideological concepts have the potential to be manipulated by individuals for personal gain. And though “people can justify their [actions] in the name of the collective good,” they may actually be attempting to “disguis[e] a vested interest. ” Before we can effectively analyze plea bargaining, we must attempt to identify the personal hidden agendas of various court professionals. [Emphasis added]
Jackson’s argument that court officials have “personal hidden agendas” regarding plea bargains raises questions about her time as a federal district court judge, as many Republicans have accused her of being soft on criminals.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Jackson was very lenient on crime during the coronavirus pandemic. She alleged that Jackson was partial towards criminals and terrorists:
At the start of the pandemic, you advocated, and again I wrote, for “each and every criminal defendant in the D.C. Department of Corrections custody should be released.” That would have been 1500 criminals back on the street if you had had your way. And you used the COVID-19 pandemic as justification to release a fentanyl drug dealer, a bank robber addicted to heroin, and a convict who murdered a U.S. Marshal into our communities. But your efforts to protect convicts began before the pandemic. You used your time and talent, not to serve our nation’s veterans or other vulnerable groups, but to provide free legal services to help terrorists get out of Gitmo and go back to the fight.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) noted during the hearing that Jackson has documented past support of Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter. He said that would raise the question regarding left-wing prosecutors who are backed by left-wing donor George Soros.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said on Monday that Jackon has been “lenient” on child sex predators and is “soft on crime.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
THERE IS NO GREATER THREAT TO AMERICA THAN THE LAWYER CLASS. WE ONLY HAVE TO LOOK AT JOE BIDEN'S DESTRUCTION OF OUR ECONOMY AND BORDERS WHILE HE RAKED IN THE BRIBES TO SEE THAT ...... AGAIN!
LAWLESS LAWYER-JUDGES - THE CASE AGAINST KETANJI BROWN JACKSON'S CONTEMPT FOR FREE SPEECH WHEN SHE DIFFERS IN OPINION. IT'S NOT THE LAW, IT'S HER POLITICAL AGENDA
Exclusive—Alan Dershowitz: My Encounter with Ketanji Brown Jackson at Harvard in 1991
When Ketanji Brown Jackson was at Harvard 30 years ago, a white student whose family had supported the Confederacy despite their opposition to slavery, decided to fly a Confederate flag from her dorm window. She said her motivation was to stimulate a conversation about the complexity of the Confederacy. As you can imagine, her action stimulated outrage among many students of all races and ethnicities. One African American student responded to the Confederate flag by flying a Nazi flag from her dorm window—not to show support for Nazism but to make students whose families were victimized by Nazis better understand why the descendants of slaves react so strongly to the flag that symbolizes their enslavement.
The Black Students Association demanded that Harvard prohibit the flying of such deeply offensive flags, claiming that it showed that students of color were not welcome at Harvard.
The women flying the Confederate flag asked me to defend her freedom to fly the flag. I urged her to take it down, but I agreed to defend her free speech right to do the wrong thing, just I had defended the right of Nazis to display their horrible symbols on the streets of Skokie, Illinois, and other locations. I understood that Harvard is a private university, whereas Skokie is a governmental entity bound by the First Amendment. But Harvard has committed itself to be governed by the spirit of the First Amendment, and freedom of expression is as essential to a university as it is to governments.
One of the students who demanded the removal of the flags was Ketanji Brown Jackson. I don’t recall having encountered her individually, but I did speak to groups of student protesters, trying to explain the case for not censoring even the most reprehensible symbols of hate. I don’t know whether she heard my talk, but I do know that she was aware of the free speech argument that was being made by me and a few others and that persuaded the Harvard authorities to reject the demands of the protesters and allow the flags to fly, while urging all students “to take more account of the feelings and sensitivities of others.” Several years later, I successfully defended the rights of Palestinian students to fly the flag of the Palestine Liberation Organization, despite its offensiveness to many Jewish students.
Attorney Alan Dershowitz at the U.S. Capitol on January 29, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
So, it was my view then and it is my view now that young Ketanji Brown Jackson was on the wrong side of a complex and difficult conflict when she was a student. I don’t know how she would deal now, as a justice, with such a conflict between freedom of expression and the understandable claims of students or other protestors. But I would not judge her by which side she supported as a young student. The 30-year-old episode provides a basis for asking questions about her current constitutional views regarding the First Amendment but not for necessarily assuming what her answers will be.
Judge Jackson’s current approach to the First Amendment is highly relevant to her suitability to sit on the nation’s highest court, especially at a time when many progressive, woke, and even liberal people are in favor of weakening freedom of expression when it comes in conflict with claims of racial inequality and hate speech. I would hope her views have matured and that she understands that the First Amendment was designed to protect even the most offensive expressions, even against the most understandable of claims. I strongly support Judge Jackson’s nomination on the current record because she is highly qualified by her education, work experience including as a public defender, and her judicial record. But I could not support the confirmation of a judicial nominee who would weaken the First Amendment at a time when it is under attack from so many quarters.
So, I hope she will be questioned not about specific cases, but about her general views regarding the centrality of the First Amendment to our constitutional system. And I hope she will strongly support the freedom of those who express views with which she strongly disagrees.
Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School. Follow him on Twitter at @AlanDersh; on his new podcast, The Dershow, on Spotify, YouTube and iTunes; and at Dersh.Substack.com.
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