WASHINGTON – Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson alternated between two types of answers on her first day of questions at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Tuesday. On legal issues, she was opaque and non-binding, emphasizing the limit of the judicial role.
But on more concrete things she was direct and even enthusiastic. She spoke with force about the horrific and lasting trauma caused by the sexual abuse of children, the devastating consequences of the terrorist attacks on 11 September.
This two-step approach has helped neutralize some of the lines of attack that Republicans have been developing since President Biden announced Judge Jackson’s nomination last month: that she would leave politics a role in her work at the Supreme Court. and that aspects of her professional background indicated that she was out of the legal mainstream.
In the legal realm, she insisted that she had no judicial philosophy, but only what she described as a methodology bordering on the robot, one that considered the parties’ submission and then applied the relevant law to the facts in the record. .
Before applying this methodology, she said, “I clear my head of all preconceived notions about how the case will turn out and reject any personal opinion.”
The statement is reminiscent of what Justice Clarence Thomas said in his 1991 affidavit. He claimed he had no agenda on the bench and would approach cases “like a runner cut off.”
Justice Thomas went on to become the most conservative member of the current Supreme Court. And there is little doubt that Judge Jackson, if upheld, will generally agree with the liberal members of the court.
That would keep the court its conservative majority, with its six Republican appointments dominating its three democracies.
If the verdict were really just the process of clearing the blankets and enforcing the law on the facts, the affirmative hearings would not be the partisan battlefields they give. But Judge Jackson did not even whisper a hint that politics, politics, ideology, personal preferences or even a philosophy of justice play a role in a case.
As she described her actual work as a trial judge, a different side of her emerged. She emphasized, for example, that “it is important for me to ensure that the children’s perspectives, the voices of the children, and my judgments are represented” by people who are convicted of having images of sexual abuse.
“There’s only one market for this kind of material because there are lookers,” she recalled, referring to the defenders, one of whom cried. “You are contributing to child sex abuse.”
Judge Jackson described victims who ended up being drug addicts or prostitutes around. One, she said, “can not leave her house because she thinks that everyone who meets her has seen her pictures on the Internet – they are out forever – in the most vulnerable time of her life.”
That was one of the few lively moments in which Judge Jackson deviated from the usual conventions of affirmation hearings, which are generally sterile and bland.
Recalling the “tragic attack” on September 11, she said, “We could not win over the terrorists by changing who we were fundamentally.”
“And what that means,” she said, “is that the people who have been accused by our government of engaging in actions in this regard under our constitutional scheme have the right to representation.”
She firmly rejected the charge that her work as a public defender of the federal government indicated she was soft on crime, noting that her brother and two uncles worked in law enforcement.
“As someone who patrolled family members and was in the firing line,” she said, “I care deeply about public safety.”
To what extent has she discussed constitutional interpretation, she seems to maintain the originalism that depends on the original public meaning of the Constitution at the time of its adoption.
“I do not believe there is a living constitution,” she said, “in the sense that it changes and it is infused with my own political perspective or the political perspective of the day.”
“The Supreme Court has made it clear that when interpreting the Constitution, you are looking at the text at the time of its inception and what the meaning was then as a restriction on my own authority,” she said. “And so I apply this restriction. I look at the text to determine what it means for those who have worked it out.
In answer to questions about Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion, Judge Jackson contradicts statements made by former President Donald J. Trump three, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. As she said, Roe was an established precedent, which means that it should only be exceeded if the demanding requirements of the doctrine of the “Star Decision” are met.
Under this doctrine, Latin for “to decide things”, the courts consider factors such as whether the precedent was extremely wrong, whether it was unproven, whether it was undermined by later decisions, and to the extent that the People trust each other. et.
When a challenge to Roe was argued in December, judges Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett opened up to limit or overcome it.
As others recently nominated, Judge Jackson declined to answer a number of questions.
She would not say whether she supported or opposed the extension of the Supreme Court, even after being reminded that Justice Stephen G. Breyer, whom she hopes to replace, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in 2020 died, spoke against the idea. . “I am particularly conscious of not talking about political issues,” she said, “because I am so committed to staying in my track of the system.”
She would also not take a position on the camera coverage of the court’s arguments, something former nominees have said they tend to favor.
Justice Breyer, for whom Judge Jackson served as a law enforcement officer, wrote and spoke about the role foreign and international law in the work of U.S. courts. Judge Jackson declined to support that position.
“There are very, very few cases, I think, in which international law plays no role and certainly not in the interpretation of the Constitution,” she said.
Asked about Judge Thomas ‘call and Gorsuch to reconsider the New York Times’ case against Sullivan, the 1964 decision, which stated that the First Amendment limited the ability of public officials to prosecute the injury, Judge Jackson convincing the various criteria for the presidents. She did not say how she would apply it.
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