By Todd Lassa
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Ketanji Brown Jackson on “Critical Race Theory” (which is not taught below the college level) at Georgetown Day School, where President Biden’s nominee for Supreme Court associate justice is a board member. For Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), it was Judge Jackson’s record of “liberal” prison sentences for those convicted of various child pornography charges. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) queried Brown Jackson what her “personal, hidden agenda” might be when she is confirmed by a very thin majority of senators to SCOTUS. And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) fumed once again over Biden’s choice of Brown Jackson instead of his, and Rep. Jim Clyburn’s (D-SC) preferred candidate J. Michelle Childs, a U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina.
But it was Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) friendly questioning of Biden’s nominee to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the first full day of her confirmation hearings that caught my attention.
Whitehouse asked Brown Jackson whether she thinks there is more to civil juries than simply being a “fact-finding appendage” to the trial judge.
The civil jury is a “mechanism by which citizens can participate in governance,” she replied, noting that “citizens are brought in from the community” and are screened for potential conflicts of interest.
On the second day of her Senate Judiciary Committee hearings Wednesday, Brown Jackson answered Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) questions about her experience as a federal public defender, by summarizing Gideon v. Wainwright, the 1963 case in which SCOTUS ruled that the 6th Amendment guarantees right to counsel, thus establishing public defenders for the indigent.
“It was crucial for our justice system to have representation for both sides,” Brown Jackson answered. “Having lawyers for criminal defendants aids in this process” and having defense for the indigent is important for our society, she said. Ossoff noted that the Southern District of Georgia is one of only three districts in the nation that does not have a public defender’s office.
I can’t help but think of the last time I was called to jury duty, about a half decade ago to a suburban Detroit municipal court – criminal court.
The Metro Detroit court was for hearing cases over relatively small-time crimes – narcotics possession, theft and burglary, that sort of thing. Or so I figure. My day on the jury pool went something like the following:
Arrive early in the morning. Hold in a waiting room, then be escorted into a typical wood-paneled courtroom. There were maybe 20-30 jurors, filling perhaps half the courtroom. Somewhere on our way into the courtroom we could see in the hallway another room, probably the judge’s chambers, with one of those small vertical windows, large enough for the jury pool to see a couple of suits – a prosecutor and a defense attorney. What does stick out in my memory is that the judge and the lawyers in that office could see the jury pool file in easier than we could see them.
The court clerk – I think – came into the courtroom to tell us to sit tight. About lunchtime the clerk told us it wouldn’t be long now. The jury pool started squirming and complaining a bit, talking about missed work and having had to drop kids off at school early, that sort of thing, and how this process seems to be a huge waste of everyone’s time. At one point, I noted, perhaps a bit too loudly, that we in the jury pool were all white.
A little while later, we were all told we could go home. The clerk told me that she didn’t remember the last time a criminal case actually went to court.
All the defendants had pleaded out. I do not have any idea what their racial, ethnic, or gender make-up might have been – they may have been all white.
If confirmed, Brown Jackson will be the first-ever public defender on the Supreme Court, and that experience – and insight into how criminal defense works in this country – will serve the court as well as anything else on her resume.