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(CNSNews.com)-- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) noted that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has sentenced defendants who plead guilty to distribution of child pornography to half as many months in prison as the national average on “Life, Liberty & Levin” Sunday.
Sen. Cruz was invited on Fox News host Mark Levin’s show to discuss Judge Jackson’s low sentencing for sex offenders compared to the national average as well as the federal guidelines, relaying his concerns as to what this will mean for future cases if she is confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice.
“Her average sentence for all criminal cases, 2015-2019, was 29.9 months," Cruz said. "The average nationally is 45.1 months, so she is 34% less than the national average for all criminal cases. Her average sentence for someone who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography was 29.2 months; the national average is 68 months. That means she sentenced 57% below the national average."
"And I’ll tell you it’s even more stunning for the people who pleaded guilty to distribution of child porn. The national average is 135 months. If you’re distributing child porn, that is a bad crime, 135 months is the national average; her average is 71.9 so it’s half, 47% less. And there’s a mandatory minimum of 60 months for the distribution of child porn, so she couldn’t go below 60 months under the law. This pattern is really disturbing and what it will mean if she’s confirmed as a justice, I think we will see for 30 or 40 years, a justice over and over again voting to release murderers, over and over again voting to overturn criminal convictions, over and over again voting to put loopholes in place that benefit violent criminals and sexual predators."
Below is the transcript for this portion of the segment:
Mark Levin: “Senator Cruz, welcome. You’re on the Senate Judiciary Committee, you questioned this nominee; were you impressed with her?”
Ted Cruz: “Well, so I have known Judge Jackson for thirty years. We were in law school together, we were both on the Law Review at Harvard. Personally speaking, she’s very bright, she’s very charming, she’s very affable, but her substantive record, I mean, you used a word a minute ago, 'radical,' and I think that’s exactly right. Her substantive record is dramatically to the left and if she is confirmed, she will be the most liberal justice of all nine; she will be the most liberal justice to have ever served on the U.S. Supreme Court and that will have enormous consequences across the entire range. It will have enormous consequences for free speech, it will have enormous consequences for religious liberty, it will have enormous consequences for the Second Amendment. Her record shows a consistent left-wing, radical approach, but I think there was no area where her record was more troubling than crime and her record on crime, in particular -- she came out of law school and clerked for Justice [Stephen] Breyer on the Supreme Court and she became a federal public defender. And you and I have both known public defenders and there are public defenders, people go and do that because their heart is with criminal defendants. Their heart is with the murderers, with the criminals, and that’s who they’re rooting for, a lot of the same reason people go become a prosecutor because they want to lock up bad guys, public defenders often have a natural inclination in the direction of the criminal.
"And I got to say that inclination was not just while she was a public defender, but she carried it onto the bench. When she became a criminal judge, you know, my office did an analysis of her criminal sentences versus every other federal judge in the country. Her average sentence for all criminal cases, 2015-2019, was 29.9 months. The average nationally is 45.1 months, so she is 34% less than the national average for all criminal cases. But I’ll tell you, Mark, it gets even more concerning when you deal with sex crimes and she’s got three decades of advocating for lenient treatment for sex offenders and in particular, her record dealing with defendants who were guilty with possession or distribution of child pornography, her record is no less than astonishing. Over and over again, she had ten different cases in front of her over her time as a judge dealing with people, all of whom pleaded guilty to possession or distribution of child pornography. And over and over and over again, a hundred percent of the time, when she had sentencing discretion, she gave them a slap on the wrist. She gave them much, much lower than the sentencing guidelines, she gave them much, much lower than the prosecutor asked for, and again, these are statistics my office pulled together. Her average sentence for someone who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography was 29.2 months; the national average is 68 months. That means she sentenced 57% below the national average. And I’ll tell you it’s even more stunning for the people who pleaded guilty to distribution of child porn. The national average is 135 months. If you’re distributing child porn, that is a bad crime, 135 months is the national average; her average is 71.9 so it’s half, 47% less. And there’s a mandatory minimum of 60 months for the distribution of child porn, so she couldn’t go below 60 months under the law.
“This pattern is really disturbing and what it will mean if she’s confirmed as a justice, I think we will see for 30 or 40 years, a justice over and over again voting to release murderers, over and over again voting to overturn criminal convictions, over and over again voting to put loopholes in place that benefit violent criminals and sexual predators and that, I think, is really disturbing.”
Emily Robertson is a CNSNews intern and a senior at Liberty University studying Strategic Communication with a double minor in Government and Politics & Policy. She has written for the Liberty Champion as an opinion writer and news reporter, as well as participated in other extracurricular activities involving law and politics.