Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee for three days. A vote on her nomination is April 4.
Photo courtesy of ABA
The Standing Committee, which rated Jackson “Well Qualified,” its highest rating, was represented by committee chair retired Judge Ann Claire Williams of Chicago and standing committee members D. Jean Veta of Washington, D.C., and Joseph M. Drayton of New York City, who were the Standing Committee’s lead evaluators.
During the questioning of Jackson in the first three days of the hearings, Democrats lauded her integrity, scholarship and diverse legal background. Republicans concentrated their questions on sentencing in child pornography cases, representation of Guantanamo detainees and critical race theory.
During the ABA testimony on day 4, Williams explained to the Senate committee that the ABA does not “recommend or endorse any nominee.” She helped explain that the Standing Committee is independent from the ABA and tasked just with the evaluations, and noted the importance of confidentiality in the process.
When asked if the evaluation found any evidence that Jackson was soft on crime, Veta said one of the respondents said they “vehemently disagree” while another said it was “absolutely not borne out based on my experience.” As far as being out of the mainstream in sentencing, Drayton said that of all the prosecutors and defense attorneys interviewed who worked with Jackson, “none of them believed she showed any bias.”
The Standing Committee has conducted its independent, nonpartisan and comprehensive evaluations of the professional qualifications of nominees to the federal bench since 1953. For the evaluation of Jackson, the committee invited input from 1,990 judges and 865 lawyers and other professionals. Three independent reading groups made up of more than 50 law professors and legal experts studied the writing of Jackson.
More than 250 judges, attorneys and academics of all political persuasions and across every aspect of Jackson’s professional career responded and consistently used the words “brilliant,” “thoughtful,” “thorough,” “beyond reproach,” “fair,” “respectful” and “eminently qualified.”
The evaluation, which is based solely on the nominee’s integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament, does not consider ideology. Some peer comments on Jackson that were offered confidentially included: “She is off-the-charts in terms of her integrity and judicial temperament;” “She is one of the brightest legal minds in the country with a well-rounded set of experiences in the legal system and judiciary;” “She is humble and with no sense of entitlement;” and “I cannot think of anyone more qualified or better-suited to sit on the High Court.”
The three diverse reading groups, which spent hundreds of hours going through Jackson’s writings, all found her to demonstrate the highest level of legal scholarship. One reading group member said that Jackson “has that wonderful combination of high intelligence and common sense. She thinks analytically and is a clear and persuasive writer. She can both craft an exceptionally intricate opinion and present it in a way that lawyers and non-lawyers alike can understand.”
The Standing Committee determined that during Jackson’s eight years as a U.S. District Court Judge, only 10 of her 578 opinions, dispositive orders or orders affecting injunctive relief decisions were reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in whole or in part. One of those reversals was itself reversed by the Supreme Court.
In its testimony the Standing Committee raised the issue of whether Jackson, who served two years as a federal public defender, represented Guantanamo Bay defendants and spent time on the Sentencing Commission, possessed “open-mindedness,” “freedom from bias” and “commitment to equal justice under the law,” and whether she demonstrated any bias that favored criminal defendants. The committee found no judge, attorney or other respondent who raised concerns about those issues. “She is faithful to the rule of law, even if she sometimes may personally disagree with an outcome,” one respondent said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on moving Jackson’s nomination forward on April 4.
