Durbin, defending Jackson, says Congress has failed to do its job on sentencing guidelines
Last edited Tue Mar 22, 2022, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)
Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin on Tuesday said Congress has failed to do its job on sentencing guidelines, after Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson faced a 30-minute grilling from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on a sentence she issued in a specific child pornography case.
“I hope we all agree that we want to do everything in our power, reasonably within our power, to lessen the incidence of pornography and exploitation of children. You have made that clear, that is your position, too,” Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “But I just want to tell you, Congress doesn’t have clean hands to this conversation. We haven’t touched this now for 15, 16 or 17 years. And you aren’t the only one who faced this kind of challenge with the cases before you.”
Durbin then referred to a case he mentioned earlier Tuesday involving federal Judge Sarah Pitlick of Missouri, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and whom Hawley backed. The Senate Judiciary chair noted that the judge’s sentence in the case was well below what was recommended by the guidelines.
Hawley attempted to chime in, but Durbin asked to finish his statement. He then turned to the focus of Hawley’s line of questioning, the United States v. Hawkins case, in which Jackson sentenced the defendant to three months, a ruling below the prosecutor’s recommendation of two years.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/durbin-defending-jackson-says-congress-has-failed-to-do-its-job-on-sentencing-guidelines/ar-AAVnSoY
Jackson parries Hawley's child porn questioning, noting Congress never updated sentencing guidelines
President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson rebutted a line of questioning by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Tuesday that asserted she had been too lenient in her role as a judge on child pornography offenders, by pointing blame back at Congress over its inability to update old federal sentencing guidelines.
Hawley, who teed up the attack on Jackson last week, this time focused on the case of an 18-year-old man who uploaded videos of young children being raped and molested. He pressed Jackson on why she only gave the young man, who had just graduated high school when the videos were uploaded, only 3 months in jail.
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“I want to try to understand, is it your view that society is too hard on sex offenders?” Hawley said. “This whole discussion is about why you are only giving him three months.”
Hawley noted that the federal prosecutors in the case recommended two years in jail for the defendant and that sentencing guidelines called for between 97 and 110 months in jail. Jackson responded that key sections of the law setting those guidelines, the PROTECT Act of 2003, had been invalidated by a 2005 Supreme Court ruling which changed the sentencing requirements from mandatory to advisory — giving the judge discretion.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/jackson-parries-hawleys-child-porn-questioning-noting-congress-ever-updated-sentencing-guidelines-231000197.html
Facts are too complex for Hawley's pea brain to comprehend.
= new reply since forum marked as read
