SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown counters Republican claims in Senate hearing

Ketanji Brown Jackson, US President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, countered Republican Party members’ claims against her in the Senate hearing that began on Monday. If confirmed, as is expected, she would be the first Black woman to sit on the high court in its more than 200-year history.

Republican senators grilled Jackson, claiming that she has been  lenient toward some criminal defendants, especially child porn, as a judge. 

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Responding to the claims, Jackson, who worked for seven years as a judge on the federal trial court in Washington DC, said, “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.”

The 51-year-old added that in a career of almost a decade on the bench she has ‘developed a methodology that I use in order to ensure I am ruling impartially and I am adhering to the limits of my judicial authority’. 

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“I’m acutely aware that as a judge in our system I have limited power and I try to stay in my lane,” Jackson said. 

Then, Ketanji Brown Jackson explained her approach to cases after the chairman of the commitee Dick Durbin posed questions. 

“I’m not importing my personal views or preferences,” she said.

However, Jackson, like Donald Trump’s nominee Justice Amy Coney Barrett, declined to weigh in on the expansion of the number of seats in the court. The SCOTUS currently sees a 6-3 conservative majority. 

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Jackson said that she confronts offenders who download child porn images by asking them about the impact on victims. 

“I say to them there is only a market for this kind of material because there are ‘lookers,’ that they are contributing to child sex abuse,” Jackson said.

Similar to past practice, the committee began examining Jackson’s record over four days. She gave an opening statement on Monday, and members of the committee gave their opening remarks. This was followed by questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee.