US Supreme Court Nominee Responds to GOP Critics, Defends Record

Faced with questions from senators for the first time, US Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson strongly defended her record as a federal judge on Tuesday, declaring that she will rule “from a position of neutrality” if confirmed as the first black woman. in the high court.

Jackson began the hearing by responding to Republicans who have questioned whether she is too liberal in her judicial philosophy. She said she tries to “understand what the people who created this law intended,” relying on the words of a statute but also looking at history and practice when the meaning may not be clear.

In response to Sen. Dick Durbin, the Judiciary Committee Chairman, he also rejected Republican suggestions that he has given light sentences to those who practice child pornography.

Could their failures have put the children in danger? “As a mother and a judge,” she said, “nothing could be further from the truth.”

Those are some of the toughest cases a judge has to deal with, he said. He described what it has been like to look defendants in the eye and explain the lifelong effects on victims.

It’s “important to me to represent that children’s voices are represented,” she said.

In what Durbin described as “an ordeal trial,” Jackson fielded questions early on that were intended to deflect GOP concerns and also highlight the empathetic style she has frequently described. Republicans planned to use her questioning to brand Jackson, and Democrats in general, as soft on crime, an emerging theme in the GOP’s election campaigns for the midterm elections scheduled for November.

Tuesday’s hearing was the first of two days of questioning after Jackson and the 22-member commission made opening statements Monday. On Thursday, the commission will hear from legal experts before an eventual vote to move his nomination to the full Senate.

Barring unexpected developments, Democrats who control the Senate by a slim margin hope to complete Jackson’s confirmation before Easter, though Justice Stephen Breyer won’t leave the court until after the current session ends this summer.

In his own 12-minute statement, Jackson did not mention specific cases, but told the commission that he would “apply the laws to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, in accordance with my judicial oath,” if confirmed.

[Con información de The Associated Press]

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