Political Quotes

“It tells a story, and the story is very clear. We have a situation in this country where we have not upgraded the child pornography and sexual misconduct statutes in years. Across the board, 70 to 80 percent of sentences by Federal judges take the same position as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. These so-called deviations from the guidelines have become commonplace. As I said, the overwhelming majority of Federal judges are doing this. Well, is there a problem? There is. But the problem is that we have not upgraded the statute. We bear responsibility for this. The decision was made before the Supreme Court that these guidelines would not be mandatory. It was a decision joined by Antonin Scalia--the originalist, the conservative. It put the burden back on Congress, and we have not picked up that responsibility. So you say to yourself: Well, if she were so soft on crime, it surely would have shown up in other places. Well, let me tell you what happened. The American Bar Association did a review of her career as a prosecutor, as a defender, on the bench. They interviewed 250 individuals--judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, other counsel who worked with her. And I asked, pointblank, Judge Ann Williams, who led this investigation by the ABA: Did you hear from anyone who said she was soft on crime; that she somehow was not in the norm when it came to sentencing? None. Not one. Two hundred fifty people interviewed, and not one came up with it.…”