Jessica Schulberg, Igor Bobic, and Jennifer Bendery . . . In a thinly sourced Twitter thread on Thursday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) made a series of inflammatory attacks against Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court and currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The tweets dealt with some of Jackson’s past statements on sex offender registries and civil commitment, as well as her views on mandatory minimums. He claimed, without evidence, that Jackson “has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker.”
It was a preview of a tactic Republicans will likely deploy next week when Jackson testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Hawley is a member. But despite his claim that she is soft on sex offenses, nothing is particularly unusual about her judgments in such cases.
“I’m concerned that this is a record that endangers our children,” Hawley tweeted Thursday, in a thread that contained out-of-context screenshots of Jackson’s past statements and no links to the underlying material he was criticizing.
Among the things he took issue with was an unsigned note that Jackson wrote about sex offender registries in the Harvard Law Review when she was a student. He tweeted a screenshot of the last paragraph of Jackson’s note in which she wrote that a “principled approach” to sex offender statutes involves assessing whether “they operate to deprive sex criminals of a legal right in a manner that primarily has retributive or general-deterrent effects.”
Hawley glossed over what Jackson was actually arguing here, which is that sex offender registry laws, which severely restrict the physical spaces that people can inhabit, should be evaluated based on whether they work in reducing recidivism. There is an abundance of research [NARSOL link] showing that sex offender registries do not make children safer, but do prevent nearly 1 million Americans from securing housing and employment. This is largely because most child sex abuse cases involve parents, other kids, and authority figures that victims trust — not anonymous serial predators lurking in bushes near elementary schools.
Hawley went on to say that Jackson “has also questioned sending dangerous sex offenders to civil commitment,” which again appears to be a reference to Jackson’s law school writings. Hawley notably does not define civil commitment, a little-known practice that continues incarcerating people who have completed their prison sentences, because of a psychological finding that they are likely to commit sex offenses again if released. The result is indefinite detention without charge. The American Psychiatric Association has repeatedly stated its opposition to the civil commitment of sex offenders.
Read the remainder of the piece here at the Huffington Post.
It looks like the arguments against Jackson fail to understand that crimes related to child pornography do not necessarily entail that the person convicted of such crimes is a child predator or a pedophile. First, child pornography can be accessed without direct contact with a victim. A child pornography charge alone is insufficient evidence to determine if the person is a child predator. Second, in order to be a pedophile, a person has to exclusively be sexually interested in prepubescent children. Child pornography means the victim is under the age of 18, not necessarily prepubescent. Finally, someone under the age of 18 can be charged with child pornography. Jackson has to consider factors such as these when determining sentences, just as all judges do. There are aggravating and mitigating factors. When draconian sentencing is the norm, going against this norm in the interest of fairness may seem like being “soft” in comparison. I think this is the primary reason why Jackson is being accused of being too lenient: she is not being draconian.
All we get is mean and messy from these hearings. Why would the people act any different? We are compelled to follow leadership as well as the law. Obviously the nominee has accomplished enough to sit on a high bench, but accomplishment is not the focus. The focus is on the database infrastructure and porn use. Focus on sexuality and her disposition towards unlawful porn. Focus on the nasty, while being nasty with irrelevant questions. Both sorry ass sides are constantly and consistently focused on moral tactics, depending upon who chose the nominee or candidate. They (Rs this time)had the audacity to drag in specific case files of an adjudged done case onto the Senate Floor! The super sized the document! And then confronted her with it! NASTY- And a sure sign to the high court itself! Historical indeed! She’s already a fed judge AND they attacked her moral foundation over a weak man and a database containing electronic image copied and transmitted by internet. {In all reality, an unlawful combination of bytes (0\1) copied, transmitted and reprocessed from\by database & software}
Defendant: “Judge, I did not use that file in evidence to entertain myself…I used a copy of that file” And so did the Rs and they super sized it too! Nasty nasty nasty! Who can expect different in our streets? Only fools. Was it any different with the Kavenau nomination hearings? Nope! How about Justice Thomas, same more or less.
State of the nation means just that. With a regime like SOR in evidence, why expect something else. Be hard on the weak!
Perhaps NARSOL could respond in a way salient after her cert is granted, and when she’s sworn. A good time to be the tip of the spear.
Here we have a judicial nominee who’s ethical and impartial and all of a sudden she’s the bad guy…
I am not an attorney,nor am I involved in law or the Judicial System, however, I applaud Judge Jacksons stance on the registry and her decisions in the cases the Senators cited. First of all, it’s hard watching such hypocrites on all sides crow while our Country is burning, mrna and rna jabs are being ok’d though many reported injuries, mandates that violate the US Constitution and the WHOTreaty seeks to exceed worldwide authority over all during a ‘health emergency’. Yes, I am very happy the Judge Jackson delineates the differences in sex offense cases because all SEX OFFENSE CASES are NOT created equal. It’s like a key word addiction, just toss in the word ‘child’ and as if the masses are real heroes as children starve worldwide, they call out for death upon those accused! It’s absurd! For Hollywood creators ‘child porn’ is called ‘Art’, for advertisers and Cartoons, they call it entertainment and art. The point being, the entire Law itself needs to be reformed, it’s unfair, overly punitive and inconsistent. They gave Judges the ability to use discretion, but most don’t because they don’t want to be unpopular ,nor do they give a crap about the Jurisprudence the vowed to utilize. The registry makes those on it targets for every kind of lunatic and victimization not excluding future false accusations by miscreants.
As long as the people are ignorant, the horror of the US Prison incentive$ will remain. I remind those that one day that could be them, rotting away !