WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, who grew up in Miami-Dade County and graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High School, will be answering more questions from the members of the Senate Judicial Committee on Wednesday — the third day of the four-day hearings in Capitol Hill. The committee’s 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats have 20 minutes each to continue the interview.
Some Republican senators have focused on her experience as a federal judge ruling on child pornography cases and others on her experience as a federal public defender representing prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, chose to question her judgment while serving as assistant special counsel and commissioner of the sentencing commission.
“It seems as though you’re a very kind person, and that there’s at least a level of empathy that enters into your treatment of a defendant that some could view as may be beyond what some of us would be comfortable with, with respect to administering justice,” Tillis said about Republicans’ implications that she is soft on crime.
Most senators were complimentary of Jacksons’ family. Some referenced her two daughters, 17-year-old Talia and 21-year-old Leila; and her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, who traveled from Miami-Dade to Washington, D.C., for the hearings. Others mentioned her brother, Attorney Ketajh Brown, who served in the U.S. Army and has law enforcement experience.
On Tuesday, Jackson said her parents grew up in Miami’s racially segregated schools and talked about her mother, a science teacher who was the principal at New World School of the Arts in Miami. Her husband, Dr. Patrick G. Jackson, a surgeon who is related to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, was in tears as she talked about her family during the first hearing.
“My father, in particular, bears responsibility for my interest in the law. When I was four, we moved back to Miami so that he could be a full-time law student. We lived on the campus of the University of Miami Law School,” she said during her opening statement, also acknowledging her Palmetto high school debate coach, Fran Berger.
Jackson is breaking barriers. She stands to make history as the first Black woman to serve as Supreme Court justice and the third Black justice after Clarence Thomas and Thurgood Marshall.
Wednesday morning report