GOP senator asks Jackson if her 'compassion' for defendants could lead to 'bad results'
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) asked Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson whether her "compassion" toward criminals could lead to "bad results" during the third day of Jackson's confirmation hearings on Wednesday.
Tillis, who touted his own record of pushing for the release of non-violent offenders, cited high recidivism rates and an opinion in which Jackson considered (but rejected) the argument that all prisoners might "reasonably" be released to protect them from COVID-19.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"I don't recall saying anything about 'compassion' in the way that you're describing it," Jackson answered. "Thank you for letting me clarify. The statements that I made about my practices as a trial judge ... were intended to explain how trial judges operate and how they impose sentences within the framework that Congress has provided ... [I]t tells us that we should be imposing a sentence 'sufficient but not greater than necessary' to promote the purposes of punishment. Congress also tells us that one of the purposes of punishment is rehabilitation."
Jackson went on to say that she had sentenced people to "very lengthy periods of incarceration" but that she would also read statements from their victims to encourage offenders to "take responsibility for what they had done" instead of "feeling victimized" by the justice system and returning to crime upon release.
-
Political cartoons for January 31Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include congressional spin, Obamacare subsidies, and more
-
Syria’s Kurds: abandoned by their US allyTalking Point Ahmed al-Sharaa’s lightning offensive against Syrian Kurdistan belies his promise to respect the country’s ethnic minorities
-
The ‘mad king’: has Trump finally lost it?Talking Point Rambling speeches, wind turbine obsession, and an ‘unhinged’ letter to Norway’s prime minister have caused concern whether the rest of his term is ‘sustainable’
-
EU and India clinch trade pact amid US tariff warSpeed Read The agreement will slash tariffs on most goods over the next decade
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Maduro pleads not guilty in first US court hearingSpeed Read Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy
