[Senate Hearing 117-795]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-795
CONFIRMATION HEARING ON
FEDERAL APPOINTMENTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 28, 2021
__________
Serial No. J-117-8
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.judiciary.senate.gov
www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-325 WASHINGTON : 2026
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California Member
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota JOHN CORNYN, Texas
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TED CRUZ, Texas
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii BEN SASSE, Nebraska
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Kolan L. Davis, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
Durbin, Hon. Richard J........................................... 1
Grassley, Hon. Charles E......................................... 4
Booker, Hon. Cory A.............................................. 6
VISITING INTRODUCERS
Bennet, Hon. Michael F., U.S. Senator from Colorado.............. 8
Duckworth, Hon. Tammy, U.S. Senator from Illinois................ 9
Hickenlooper, Hon. John W., U.S. Senator from Colorado........... 10
Menendez, Hon. Robert, U.S. Senator from New Jersey.............. 11
NOMINEES
Jackson, Hon. Ketanji Brown...................................... 12
Questionnaire................................................ 63
Responses to written questions............................... 366
Additional Materails......................................... 576
Jackson-Akiwumi, Candace......................................... 13
Questionnaire................................................ 179
Responses to written questions............................... 443
Additional Materails......................................... 614
Neals, Hon. Julien Xavier........................................ 52
Questionnaire................................................ 210
Responses to written questions............................... 502
Additional Materails......................................... 649
Quraishi, Hon. Zahid N........................................... 53
Questionnaire................................................ 267
Responses to written questions............................... 530
Additional Materails......................................... 654
Rodriquez, Regina M.............................................. 54
Questionnaire................................................ 319
Responses to written questions............................... 553
Additional Materails......................................... 676
CONFIRMATION HEARING ON
FEDERAL APPOINTMENTS
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021
United States Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in Room
G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. Durbin,
Chair of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Durbin [presiding], Leahy, Feinstein,
Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Coons, Blumenthal, Hirono, Booker,
Padilla, Ossoff, Grassley, Cornyn, Lee, Cruz, Hawley, Cotton,
Kennedy, Tillis, and Blackburn.
Also present: Senators Bennett, Duckworth, Hickenlooper,
and Menendez.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Chair Durbin. Good morning. This meeting of the Senate
Judiciary Committee will come to order.
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its first
judicial nominations hearing of the 117th Congress. Our first
panel will include two circuit court nominees with outstanding
credentials, Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to be on--taking an
Illinois seat on the seventh circuit, and Judge Ketanji Brown
Jackson for the DC circuit. Our second panel will feature three
highly qualified district court nominees: Julien Neals, Judge
Zahid Quraishi, both nominated to the District Court of New
Jersey, and Regina Rodriguez, nominated for the District Court
of Colorado. Senators Bennett, Duckworth, Hickenlooper,
Menendez, and Booker will join us shortly to join in
introducing the nominees, but before I turn it over to them and
to Ranking Member Grassley, I would like to make a few points
about this historic day for the Biden administration.
Looking at this slate of nominees, I am struck that they
not only bring qualifications that are extraordinary in this
next level of achievement, but also demographic and
professional diversity. We need it on the Federal bench. I am
reminded of what President Lyndon Johnson said when he
nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967.
Mindful that he just sent up the nomination of the first
African-American Supreme Court Justice, President Lyndon
Johnson said that Marshall ``has had a distinguished record as
private counsel and as Government counsel in the courts of the
land. I believe he has already earned his place in history, but
I think it will be greatly enhanced by his service on the
Court.'' Johnson continued, ``I believe he earned that
appointment. He deserves that appointment. He is best qualified
by training and by very valuable service to the country. I
believe it is the right thing to do, the right time to do it,
the right man and the right place.'' Importantly, he closed
with this admonition, and I quote, ``I trust that this
nomination will be promptly considered by the Senate.'' I would
say to--if I could to President Johnson, a lot of nominees wish
the very same thing.
Surveying these five nominees, I believe that they are
qualified by training, have distinguished records. They are the
right nominees to fill these vacancies, and they have earned
and deserve these appointments. All five of these nominees are
people of color. They also come from a range of professional
backgrounds. All five--all five--received ``well qualified''
ratings by the American Bar Association. Both circuit court
nominees are former Federal Public Defenders and will, as a
result, bring that perspective and experience that is far too
often missing on the bench, and that is not a partisan point of
view. In fact, scholars at the Cato Institute--the Cato
Institute, hardly a liberal bastion--have highlighted the
critical importance of adding more public defenders to the
ranks of the judiciary. Today, we are on our way to doing just
that.
Today's district court nominees, likewise, represent a
depth and breadth of experience that will serve them well on
the bench, and that will, in turn, serve the people of New
Jersey and Colorado. This district court panel includes Julien
Neals, an expert in municipal law and a dedicated public
servant, who presided over more than 6,000 cases in the Newark
municipal court system; Judge Zahid Quraishi, a decorated
military veteran, Federal magistrate who, if confirmed, will be
the first American Muslim to sit on an Article III court;
Regina Rodriguez, a path-breaking, former chief of the Civil
Division in the Colorado U.S. Attorney's Office, whose mother's
family was interned during World War II in what was one of our
Nation's most shameful moments.
While this breadth and depth of experience is important,
so, too, is the confidence we can have that all these nominees,
once confirmed, understand their responsibility as judges. It
is a welcome change to see nominees who have been selected for
their credentials and abilities rather than those who simply
check the box in their political experience. For 4 years,
President Trump nominated, and Senate Republicans approved, far
too many nominees, many of whom never should have been
nominated. Ten of the nominees in the Trump administration for
lifetime appointments to the Federal court had been found
unanimously--unanimously--``unqualified'' by the American Bar
Association, but that did not deter their nomination, and, in
most cases, their selection. Thankfully, with today's five
nominees, the Biden administration has taken an important step
toward orienting the courts back toward evenhandedness,
fairmindedness, and competence. The administration has done so
with a group of nominees whose qualifications are beyond
question.
I have the honor and privilege of introducing two of them.
I will start with Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, nominated to an
Illinois seat on the seventh circuit. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi is
the daughter of two judges. Her father, Judge Raymond Jackson,
is a Federal district court judge in Virginia. Her mother,
Judge Gwendolyn Jones Jackson, previously served as a State
court judge. Their daughter, Candace, received her
undergraduate degree from Princeton, her law degree from Yale
where she served on the Yale Law Journal. She clerked for Judge
David Coar on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District
of Illinois, who incidentally heads my panel to approve
nominees for the Federal bench in Illinois, and Judge Roger
Gregory on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. She then
practiced at the law firm Skadden, Arps in Chicago and then did
something which is highly unusual. She decided to leave private
practice to join the Federal Public Defender's Office in the
Northern District of Illinois, working in that office for 10
years, leaving just last fall when she came to DC with her
husband, Eric, pursuing a job opportunity. For the last several
months, she has practiced at the DC office of the law firm
Zuckerman Spaeder. However, upon confirmation, she will return
to Chicago. Good for us. I want to thank her husband, Eric, for
adjusting his own career for the sake of his wife's.
It is a sad reality that 4 years of President Trump and a
Republican Senate did not expand diversity on our Federal
courts. This includes both demographic diversity and life
experience. Over 4 years, President Trump appointed 54 judges
to the circuit courts. Fifty-four. None of them, not one of
them, was Black. Currently, the seventh circuit has no judges
of color. In fact, only one judge of color has ever served on
the seventh circuit, my friend and retired Federal judge, Ann
Claire Williams, who was appointed by President Clinton with my
strong support. In 2016, President Obama nominated a highly
qualified Black attorney named Myra Selby to an Indiana seat on
the seventh circuit. Republican Senators blocked her nomination
for nearly an entire year.
The NAACP has made it clear that this lack of diversity
means something important to the Federal bench. In a November
2020 letter, NAACP president, Derrick Johnson, wrote, and I
quote, ``The absence of diversity undermines the integrity and
legitimacy of the Federal judiciary. Judges from different
racial, ethnic, and other backgrounds enrich judicial decision-
making and promote trust and confidence by communities impacted
by their rulings.''
Thankfully, we have Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi before us today,
highly qualified with a unique perspective, and only a tiny
fraction have spent--on the Federal bench now have spent the
majority of their careers as public defenders or in legal aid.
In fact, out of 179 current Federal circuit court judgeships,
there appear to be only two judges who spent a significant part
of their legal career as Federal Public Defenders, one of them
from the State of Iowa, Eighth Circuit Judge Jane Kelly, and a
Third Circuit Judge Luis Restrepo of Pennsylvania. In contrast,
there are many former Federal prosecutors on the Federal bench.
Many are extraordinary jurists, but they do not share the same
life experience as these nominees.
As a Federal defender, Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi represented over
400 indigent Federal defendants at all stages of the criminal
justice process. She has tried eight trials to verdict and
argued six appeals before the circuit court. She has litigated
hundreds of contested hearings, including sentencing hearings.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi knows these criminal--the criminal justice
system inside and out. She is exactly the type of nominee we
should hope to see more of. I look forward to hearing more
about her experience today.
I also have the honor of introducing Judge Jackson--Brown
Jackson, nominated to the DC circuit.
Judge Jackson was born right here in Washington, DC, where
her parents, who were natives of Miami, were at the time
working as public school teachers. When she was 3 years old,
Judge Jackson and her parents went back to Miami so her dad
could go--attend law school at the University of Miami. He
later served as a principal attorney for the Dade County School
Board, while Judge Jackson's mother served for 14 years as the
principal of a leading magnet school in the Miami area. Judge
Jackson herself attended Harvard and Harvard Law. She then went
on to a series of clerkships at the district court on the first
circuit, and finally a Supreme Court clerkship for Justice
Stephen Breyer.
The breadth of her legal career is impressive, from her
work in private practice at the law firm Morrison & Foerster,
to her service as an attorney on the U.S. Sentencing
Committee--Commission, to her time as a Federal Public
Defender. Judge Jackson is well known to us on this Committee
in light of her prior nominations to the Sentencing Commission
and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. I
might note, she won unanimous support for both of these roles
from this Committee and from the Senate as a whole.
There are two aspects of Judge Jackson's record I would
like to highlight. First is her tenure on the Sentencing
Commission. The issue of criminal sentencing is one that is
deeply important to me, and I am sure to my colleague, Senator
Grassley. As a Sentencing Commission member and as a Federal
judge who has handed down sentences, Judge Jackson has faced
the often difficult questions inherent in that responsibility.
She will bring that experience to bear on the DC circuit.
The second is, more broadly, her record on the Federal
bench. Judge Jackson has shown time and again in her decisions
that she is guided not by ideology or a preferred outcome, but
by a steadfast belief in approaching every case with fairness
and impartiality. We see that reflected not only in her
evenhanded record, but in the comments of those who have served
with her. She has won praise across the ideological spectrum,
including from DC circuit judge, Thomas Griffith, a George W.
Bush appointee, who wrote to the Committee in support of her
nomination. Judge Griffith wrote, and I quote, ``Although she
and I sometimes differed on the best outcome of a case, I have
always respected her careful approach and agreeable manner, two
indispensable traits for success in a collegial body.'' In
these partisan times, Judge Griffith's words ring even more
important.
I look forward to hearing from Judge Jackson today and from
all five of today's nominees. With that, I turn it over to my
friend and fellow colleague, the Ranking Member, Chuck
Grassley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF IOWA
Senator Grassley. For the first three paragraphs of my
remarks, I would ask the Democrats to pay attention. It may
sound facetious, but I want to make a point. Today we are
hearing from five nominees to be considered for judgeships,
including two circuit nominees. Because this is the Committee's
first hearing on judicial nominees of this Congress, I will be
very attentively listening to my Democratic friends to see if I
catch any apologies from them to Justice Amy Coney Barrett. You
see, last fall we heard from them time and time again for weeks
that Judge Barrett was being put on the Supreme Court for two
reasons: one, to steal the election for Donald Trump and to get
rid of Obamacare. I just checked. Joe Biden is President of the
United States, and Obamacare is still on the books. If my
friends do not want to apologize to Justice Barrett publicly,
she is right next door, and I will bet she would be happy to
accept any apologies in person.
Turning to today's nominees, Judge Jackson has been
nominated to the DC circuit court, often called the second
highest court in the land. Judge Jackson was appointed by
President Obama to serve on the DC district court in 2013, and
has been involved in over 500 cases as a judge since then. As
someone who has been very interested and invested in criminal
justice reform, as Senator Durbin has been, I appreciate Judge
Jackson's work on the Sentencing Commission where she also
served. We will also hear from Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi today,
nominated for the seventh circuit. She is a nominee who served
as a Federal Public Defender for 10 years in the Chicago area
before moving to DC, and has represented over 400 criminal
defendants, many of whom were charged with crimes involving
illegal firearms. I will be interested in hearing her views on
the so-called gun pandemic and how violent criminals play into
that.
From my review of her record, it certainly seems that Ms.
Jackson-Akiwumi has been a zealous advocate for clients and
criminal defendants who are deserving of competent
representation in our justice system, but I will be asking her
today about some of the specific positions she has advocated
for. I am sure Democrats will complain that we should not hold
a nominee responsible for her clients, and perhaps that once
was true. The fact is that previous nominees, like Kyle Duncan,
Howard Nielson, Rossie Alston, Britt Grant, Mike Park, and
countless others were opposed by Democrats because of the
clients that they represented. At the same time, there is a
growing hostility to fair representation on the left with
student radicals saying, ``Not everyone deserves
representation,'' and liberal activists seeking to penalize law
firms representing clients with wrong positions--so-called
wrong positions--on social or political issues. As a wise man
said recently, it cannot be one set of rules for Republicans
and another for Democrats, so I plan to look at the candidates'
records, including their legal advocacy, on behalf of clients.
The fact is that the far left group, demand justice, which
seems to be in charge of the judicial selections in this
administration, says you can tell what kind of judge someone
will be by their clients. They strongly support Judge Jackson
and Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi because their time as Federal defenders
were--apparently caused them to pursue social justice rather
than follow the law. Of course, I hope not, and it is not an
accusatory statement, but it does take off on some very unfair
accusations against nominees of one party versus the nominees
of another party.
This hearing is our first look at President Biden's
judicial nominees. I am hopeful that these nominees will engage
with all Senators and ultimately respond to our questions.
Congratulations to all of you for your nominations.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Grassley. A number of
Senators would like to formally introduce one or more of our
nominees, and I have a list of those who are available. The
first is physically present, from the State of New Jersey, our
colleague, Senator Cory Booker.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORY A. BOOKER,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Senator Booker. Mr. Chairman, this is indeed an honor for
me to be able to introduce the two nominees, Julien Neals and
Judge Zahid Quraishi. They have both been nominated by
President Biden to serve as United States District Court judges
for the District of New Jersey, and we are in a very severe
judicial emergency right now. Both are highly qualified,
experienced people who serve--who share an understanding of the
impact that our courts will have on the people of our State and
across this Nation. The first individual I choose to introduce,
we have done this, again, before. Judge Neals is someone that
was nominated by the Obama administration in 2015 to serve as a
Federal district judge, but, unfortunately, the Senate failed
to bring his nomination up for a vote. Despite the delay on
Neals' confirmation, I would like to, again, just speak to who
he is.
Judge Neals and I have worked together for a very long
time. We have history. He is someone that I have had the honor
of working with, and of all the people I have worked with in my
career, and I have worked with extraordinary individuals both
here in the United States Senate and through my career in
Newark, Judge Neals is unequivocally amongst the best people I
have ever had the honor to work alongside. For 2 years he
served as chief judge of the Newark municipal court, which is
the largest court in the State--municipal court in the State of
New Jersey. He personally presided over 6,000 cases, but he
ushered in a spate of reforms, helping to create the State's
first veterans court, the State's first youth court, and other
innovations that helped Newark, New Jersey become a national
model for court innovation. He then joined my mayoral
administration. He served again at the head of the busiest
corporation counsel's office in our state, the Newark
Corporation Counsel's Office, and then he served as business
administrator for the city of Newark, and he served at a time
that we were in crisis. The city was going through the Great
Recession along with the rest of the planet Earth.
I do not think there is any person here that was a former
Governor, a former county executive, or a former mayor who had
to do what Julien and I had to do, which was to govern down our
city size 25 percent to cut our city's budget and to cut our
personnel, days and months and years of painful work of getting
our budgets to fit with the massive shortfalls in revenue that
we had. He is a brilliant, skilled administrator who has a
balance and an equipoise to keep his head about him when all
else are losing theirs.
He currently serves as the counsel to New Jersey's biggest
county, Bergen County, the county of my birth and where I was
raised. If you talk to people in Bergen County, they talk about
him almost as if he is a holy sanctified figure. They say he
has more cool than Obama. They say he is one person that truly,
when they walk into a room, everyone listens. Bergen County,
New Jersey is a political place with a lot of fiefdoms and a
lot of different power bases, but Julien seems to sail above it
all with great dignity and a great sense of expertise that
trumps all politics.
I am so honored to know this human being, and when I
imagine what a Federal judge should be, I imagine someone with
the qualities, the gifts, the kindness, the decency, and the
love for others that Julien Neals possesses. It is an honor for
me, not only to introduce him, but to have recommended him to
the President of the United States, and it is so great to see
my old friend here today.
The second person I would like to introduce is Judge Zahid
Quraishi. Judge Quraishi is someone who has had an
extraordinary life of commitment to country. He is a dedicated
public service who has--servant who has served this Nation in
many roles. You said it, Mr. Chairman. He was in the military,
in the JAG Corps, at the Department of Homeland Security, and,
most recently, worked as an assistant United States attorney in
the Office of the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. He currently is
a Federal magistrate judge in New Jersey.
This is someone who believes in this Nation and her ideals,
and is dedicated to serving them. He has honors in just about
everything that he has done, including his military service.
Judge Quraishi is a well-respected person who is also seen as a
standout in our State. He is one of the best that New Jersey
has. His legal skills and experience will serve the people of
New Jersey in our judicial crisis as a U.S. district court
judge. It has been said also that if he is confirmed, Judge
Quraishi will be a history maker as the first Muslim-American
Article III judge in all of our country's past. Because of his
example, because of his leadership, because of his character,
he will most certainly not be the last.
Both of these nominees are dedicated to the rule of law, to
justice and fairness. Both of these nominees will help to
restore integrity, and independence, and public faith in our
courts, and both of these nominees are exceptionally,
extraordinarily, unequivocally qualified. I thank President
Biden for recognizing and nominating Judge Neals and Judge
Quraishi to serve as United States district court judges for
the District New Jersey, and I strongly urge my fellow
Committee Members to support their nominations. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Booker. Senator Bennet, I
believe, by remote. Are you there, Senator Bennet?
Senator Bennet. I am here. Can you hear me, Mr. Chairman?
Chair Durbin. I hope we can--your volume up just a bit, but
we can hear you. Please proceed.
Senator Bennet. Okay. Let me--can you hear me now?
Chair Durbin. Yes.
Senator Bennet. Okay. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL F. BENNET,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Senator Bennet. Thank you very much, Chairman Durbin and
Ranking Member Grassley, for inviting me to share a few words
about Regina Rodriguez, President Biden's nominee for the U.S.
District Court for the District of Colorado. Gina comes to this
Committee with broad support in my State. We have received a
flood of letters on her behalf. All of them testify to her
character, hard work, and commitment to justice and the rule of
law. She learned all of it from her family who join us today.
Her mom's family knew injustice firsthand, as the Chairman
mentioned, during the Second World War. They were relocated
from California to the Heart Mountain Internment Site in
Wyoming, joining over 10,000 people whose loyalty to America
was questioned for no other reason but their Japanese ancestry.
Her father, Peter, was a Mexican-American who went from living
in a railroad boxcar on the South Side of Chicago to earning a
nomination for the NFL Hall of Fame. Her mother, Linda, became
a teacher and an administrator in the Denver Public Schools, my
old district when I served as superintendent.
Education and hard work transformed her parents' lives, and
Regina has always sought to live up to their example. She
graduated, the Ranking Member might be interested to know, with
honors from the University of Iowa, then returned home to earn
a J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School. After
starting at a private firm in Denver, Gina joined the U.S.
Attorney's Office. The Department of Justice recognized her
talent, and she went to work for the Attorney General on
alternative dispute resolution, a new approach at the time
meant to avoid lengthy trials through arbitration and
mediation. Gina helped to mainstream this approach for all U.S.
attorneys, saving the Government countless hours and taxpayer
dollars. Regina's leadership in Washington earned her a
promotion back in Denver, where she rose to become chief of the
Civil Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office. Today, she is one
of the most respected trial lawyers in Colorado and has
received award after award for her work.
Her commitment to the community has been just as
impressive. She is a founding board member of Colorado Youth At
Risk, a nonprofit that helps kids stay on the right track. She
served as one of Colorado's higher education commissioners and
still serves on the board of Denver's highest-performing
charter school. Somehow she still finds time to mentor lawyers
from underrepresented communities.
I could go on and on, but the evidence is overwhelming.
Regina Rodriguez is an exceptionally qualified nominee with a
distinguished career and commitment to service. She has blazed
trails in Colorado law through the sheer force of her
intellect, hard work, and character. She has my full and
enthusiastic support, and I urge the Committee to approve her
nomination.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Bennet.
Senator Bennet. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. I believe Senator Duckworth is available,
remote. Senator, can you hear us?
Senator Duckworth. I sure can.
Chair Durbin. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY DUCKWORTH,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Grassley. Thank you both. It is my honor to appear
before this Committee to both introduce and to offer my strong
support to Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, President Biden's nominee to be
the next United States circuit judge of the seventh circuit.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi exemplified President Biden's fulfillment
of his promise to nominate highly qualified individuals to the
Federal judiciary who reflect an incredibly diverse city of our
great Nation.
As one would expect, Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi possesses an
impressive academic background, graduating with honors from
Princeton University and then earning her J.D. from Yale Law
School, where she served as a senior editor on the Yale Law
Journal, and was an NAACP Legal Defense Fund Earl Warren legal
scholar. After graduation, she quickly gained experience
serving in the Federal judiciary, first clerking for Northern
District of Illinois Judge David Coer, and then for fourth
circuit Judge Roger Gregory.
I was especially struck by Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi's commitment
to public service. She has dedicated the majority of her legal
career to public service, and spent a decade in the city of
Chicago serving as a staff attorney in the Federal defender
program. As that public defender, Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi gained
immense litigation experience while advocating for those who
are often the most vulnerable and underserved in our
communities. She represented over 400 defendants, tried seven
jury trials, and argued five appeals before the seventh
circuit. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi is currently a partner at the Law
Firm of Zuckerman Spaeder, where she is a member of the firm's
business litigation, investigation, and white collar defense
groups.
However, even in the private sector, Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi
demonstrated a strong commitment to public service, spending a
significant portion of her time working on pro bono matters
involving adoption, civil rights, criminal law, and
immigration. For example, she won lawful permanent residency
and protection under the Violence Against Women Act for a
mother with her two children, advocated for better conditions
for incarcerated clients, and represented an employment
discrimination plaintiff in a successful EEOC mediation.
Beyond Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi's accomplishments, it is
important to recognize ground--the groundbreaking nature for
her nomination and the urgency of moving swiftly to confirm
her. If seated on the bench, she would be only the second Black
woman in history to serve on the seventh circuit, and the only
person of color serving on that court today. Equally important,
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi would strengthen the seventh circuit by
bringing a broad diversity of experience with her, particularly
her time serving as a public defender.
Mr. Chairman thank you again for allowing me to introduce
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, and I strongly urge the Committee to act
favorably on her nomination. I yield back.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Duckworth. Next up is our
friend and colleague from the State of New Jersey, Senator
Menendez. Are you with us, Senator?
[No response.]
Chair Durbin. We'll go back--come back to Senator Menendez
in a minute. Currently, I believe Senator Hickenlooper of
Colorado is waiting. Senator, can you hear us?
Senator Hickenlooper. Yes.
Chair Durbin. Please proceed.
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Chairman Durbin and
Ranking Member Grassley. Can you hear me?
Chair Durbin. Please proceed.
Senator Hickenlooper. Yes. Yes.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Chairman Durbin and
Ranking Member Grassley, for letting me share a few words about
Regina Rodriguez, President Biden's nominee for the U.S.
District Court for the District of Colorado. I want to add a
little bit to what Michael Bennet said so elegantly. I mean,
Regina Rodriguez comes to this Committee with broad, well-
earned support in our State, 30 years of legal experience and
accomplishments, and she really has dedicated her career to the
people of Colorado in fighting for historically disadvantaged
communities. It is not surprising that she got the enthusiastic
support of the Colorado Lawyers Committee and the Colorado Sam
Cary Bar Association. These two organizations consist of
attorneys dedicated to providing legal services to children, to
the poor, to using knowledge of the law to improve our society
and our legal system.
Former United States attorneys appointed by Presidents from
both political parties note that Regina's experience,
knowledge, demeanor, and work ethic make her really an ideal
candidate. Throughout her career, she has managed complex
matters that required the coordination of hundreds, if not
thousands, of cases and trials in multiple jurisdictions. Given
her extensive experience representing both plaintiffs and
defendants, Rodriguez understands the importance of applying
the law evenhandedly, based always on the facts.
As the Latina First Foundation put it, ``There is no person
better qualified to effectively serve on the U.S. district
court than Regina Rodriguez.'' I wholeheartedly agree. Regina
has my full support, and I hope this Committee will confirm her
nomination, and that the Senate will act swiftly to confirm
her. Thank you Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Grassley, and
all the Members on the Committee for your consideration of this
outstanding nominee.
Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Hickenlooper, and now the
question is whether Senator Menendez is available.
Senator Menendez. I am available, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Oh good. Thanks. Please proceed, Bob.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT MENENDEZ,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to Ranking
Member Grassley and distinguished Members of the Committee. It
is my great privilege to join my colleague from New Jersey, a
distinguished Member of the Judiciary Committee, in
recommending two highly qualified nominees to the United States
District Court for the District of New Jersey, Julien Neals and
Zahid Quraishi. These nominees represent the best of New
Jersey. Both reflect our State's proud and uniquely rich
diversity, and both demonstrate a steadfast commitment to equal
justice under the law.
Mr. Neals has served as the county counsel for Bergen
County since 2015. Prior to taking on that role, he served the
people of Newark in an array of capacities. From 2010 to 2014,
he was the business administrator for the city of Newark, the
highest-appointed administrator in New Jersey's largest city.
He also led the city's department of law, and served as chief
judge of the Newark municipal court. He commands enormous
respect in our legal community, from serving on the Supreme
Court of New Jersey's Committee on Character and Fitness, to
serving as chairman for Volunteer Lawyers for Justice. He
personifies the meaning of ``public service.'' Mr. Neals'
tremendous breadth of knowledge and experience, even
temperament, and exacting judgment make him a superb candidate
to serve on the Federal bench.
I am also honored to join in introducing Zahid Quraishi,
who today serves as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the U.S.
District Court for the District of New Jersey. Prior to his
appointment, he was a partner at the firm of Riker Danzig.
There, he chaired the white collar criminal defense and
investigations group, and served as the firm's first chief
diversity officer. Judge Quraishi also served as an assistant
United States attorney for more than 5 years in Newark.
Previously, he served our country as a military prosecutor with
the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps, where he achieved
the rank of Captain. Beyond his impeccable credentials, if
confirmed, Judge Quraishi would also make history as the first
Muslim-American Federal judge, and the first Asian American to
serve on the Federal bench in New Jersey. Judge Quraishi has
demonstrated both integrity and intellect throughout his
distinguished career in public service, and I believe he will
bring to this position the wisdom, experience, and demeanor
that the District Court of New Jersey deserves.
Finally, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, New
Jersey's District Court currently faces six vacancies, all of
which have been declared judicial emergencies by the Judicial
Conference of the United States. I strongly urge the
Committee's unanimous support and hope that we can have a
speedy confirmation process on these qualified nominees. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman, for bringing up these nominees as quickly as
you have, and we look forward to working with you in the days
ahead.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Menendez. Would our first
two nominees please stand to be sworn?
[Pause.]
Chair Durbin. Equipment time out. Ready?
[Witnesses are sworn in.]
Chair Durbin. Let the record reflect both witnesses have
answered in the affirmative, and we will start with Judge
Jackson. You may make an opening statement at this time.
STATEMENT OF HON. KETANJI BROWN JACKSON,
NOMINEE TO SERVE AS UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Judge Jackson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much. It is an honor to be here--to appear before you all this
morning, and I would like to start by expressing my sincerest
gratitude to you, Mr. Chairman, for scheduling this hearing and
for introducing me. I would also like to extend my thanks to
Ranking Member Grassley and to all of the Members of the
Committee for participating in this hearing today. I have had
the great privilege of having been invited to come before this
Committee twice before for confirmation, so I know that I have
already taken up a great deal of your collective time, and I am
both humbled and very grateful to be here once again. I am also
truly thankful to President Biden for giving me the honor of
this nomination to the circuit court.
Mr. Chairman, I do not have opening remarks, but I would
like to introduce you to my family members, some of whom have
traveled great distances to be here today. I am going to
refrain from giving individual tributes, but I want each of
them to know that their love and encouragement has meant so
much to me throughout the years, and there is no question that
I would not be who I am or where I am today without their
support.
I would like to start with my parents Johnny and Ellery
Brown, who left their permanent home in Miami, Florida last
week for the first time since the start of the pandemic and
traveled here by way of West Virginia where they partially
reside. My parents-in-law, Gardner and Pamela Jackson, are
lifelong Boston and Cape Cod residents, and they, too, made the
effort to travel here via I-95 to be here with me today. Also
here are my terrific brother-in-law and sister-in-law, William
and Dana Jackson, who live in Maryland, and if William looks
familiar, it is because his identical twin brother is my
husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson, who is also here. He did not have
to travel very far. He has actually been with me all along
during this incredible journey, by my side for 25 years come
this October. Finally, also here today is the younger of our
two daughters, Leila, who is a junior in high school. She is in
the most demanding season of this extraordinary challenging
academic year, so it is a special treat for me that she is with
us today. As a side note, our older daughter, Talia, would have
made the effort, but she is a freshman in college, and after
spending three-quarters of this academic year taking classes
from her bedroom, she finally got the chance to live on campus
just weeks ago, and I did not have the heart to make her come
back again.
Mr. Chairman, there are so many other members of my family
who could not be here with us at this time. They are in
Wisconsin, and Florida, and Utah, and Colorado, and
Massachusetts, and some are dearly departed. I am truly
grateful for all of them and for all of the wonderful friends
around the country who are watching these proceedings and
cheering me on through this process. With that, Mr. Chairman,
let me once again reiterate my thanks to you for inviting me
here this morning. I am enormously grateful, and I look forward
to answering the Members' questions.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Judge Jackson. Ms. Jackson-
Akiwumi, please proceed with your opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI,
NOMINEE TO SERVE AS UNITED STATES
CIRCUIT JUDGE FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Good morning. I am deeply grateful to
the Senators from my adopted home State of Illinois, Senators
Durbin and Duckworth, for their warm introductions of me. I am
grateful to Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley for
convening the hearing today, and all of the Members here for
considering my nomination. I also am grateful to the President
for the honor of this nomination.
My immediate family is here today supporting me. I struggle
for words to succinctly capture how truly wonderful they are
and what a gift they are to me. My parents have traveled from
my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia to be here. They are just over
my right shoulder, my father, the Honorable Raymond A. Jackson,
United States District Court judge for the Eastern District of
Virginia. Seated next to him, my mother, the Honorable
Gwendolyn Jones Jackson, a retired judge for the Commonwealth
of Virginia. My siblings are here today as well. My sister is
the Reverend Arlette Estelle Jackson. She did not travel far.
She is a longtime resident of the District of Columbia. My
brother is here, Raymond Daniel Jackson, attorney at law. He
has traveled from Tampa, Florida to support me today. Last but
not least, my husband, Eric Akiwumi. He remains the best friend
that I have ever had in addition to the many other amazing
roles he plays in our partnership. My husband and I have not
invited today our very active 15-month-old daughter, Noel. We
will all be much more productive today without her here. Also
missing is Noel's big brother, my 14-year-old stepson, Isaiah,
who lives in Tampa, Florida. He will be watching this hearing
later today as an excellent civics lesson in the advise and
consent role of the United States Senate.
There are obviously many other family members, and loved
ones, and friends who could not be here today because of the
COVID restrictions here in the building, but I am deeply
grateful to them all. My family is the best part of me, and I
would not be here today without their love and support. Thank
you again.
Chair Durbin. Thank you very much. Before I turn to
questions, I want to lay out a few of the standards we are
going to follow. At the request of Senator Grassley, he has
asked that for these two circuit court nominees, that we have 7
minutes to ask questions. I asked Senator Grassley before this
hearing how he enforced the time when you announce these
things, and he came up with the Grassley rule. I am sure I will
not state in its entirety, but basically he said if you are in
the midst of a question as your time runs out, finish the
question, but try to keep it short and keep the answers short.
Is that about right?
Senator Grassley. Yes.
Chair Durbin. Okay. My ruling has been blessed by Senator
Grassley, so we have a bipartisan start here. The second panel
on district court nominees will go back to the 5-minute
standard. Let me start my questioning and the 7-minute rule.
You both have an extraordinary background in having served
in the Federal Public Defender's Office representing indigents
and people who often struggle in our system of justice. I think
we know that we are engaged in a national conversation now
about justice is long overdue, and it has raised questions
about law enforcement, questions about sentencing, questions
about incarceration. It really calls to question the agenda of
this Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on the criminal
justice side. You have got a special perspective that you bring
to this that many nominees do not in light of what you have
done with your life.
I do not want you to address any case or any specific
situation, but I would like your observations because you have
spent such a big part of your lives--it goes back to what
Langston Hughes once said. It has been such a long part of
your--big part of your life. ``For those who would say life for
me ain't been no crystal stair,'' for folks--Black, brown, poor
defendants--who seeking representation in the system that
seems, to them, just overwhelming and fundamentally unfair in
some cases.
What would be your general thoughts, without any specific
case in mind, about justice in America today, and how you have
seen it and how it has changed in your time? Judge Jackson.
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I had the privilege of
serving as a Federal Public Defender, assistant Federal Public
Defender, in Washington, DC, I think it was some 16 years ago,
and as part of that experience, I, as you say, represented
people. I represented them in the appellate division of my
office, so all of my clients were convicted. I think that the
insights that one gains from that kind of professional
experience really can be very helpful in future endeavors,
especially if you go into judicial service, as I have.
I can give you a concrete example. When I worked with my
clients as a defender, my job was to talk with them and to try
to get their help to identify errors, things that had gone
wrong in their trial proceeding so that I could raise them on
appeal. One of the things that I noticed that I was really
struck by was how little they could help me with that project.
Most of my clients did not really understand what had happened
to them. They had just been through the most consequential
proceeding in their lives, and no one really explained to them
what they were supposed to expect, so they did not know where
things might have gone wrong. I remember that experience from
all those years ago.
When I became a trial judge, one of the things that I do
now is I take extra care to communicate with the defendants who
come before me in the courtroom. I speak to them directly and
not just to their lawyers. I use their names. I explain every
stage of the proceeding because I want them to know what is
going on. When I have to sentence someone, and I have sentenced
more than 100 people to date, I always tell them--I explain to
them this is why your behavior was so harmful to society, that
Congress thought that it had to be made a crime. I say, this is
why I as the judge believe that you have to serve these
consequences for your decision to engage in criminal behavior.
I think that is really important for our entire justice
system because it is only if people understand what they have
done, why it is wrong, and what will happen to them if they do
it again, that they can really start to rehabilitate. There is
a direct line from my defender service to what I do on the
bench, and I think it is beneficial.
Chair Durbin. Thank you. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, I noted in my
introduction that you made the extraordinary career move from
private practice to the Federal Defenders Program for 10 years,
I believe, that you served there. I would like you to consider
the same question I just asked Judge Jackson. In the process,
perhaps you would comment on demeanor and temperament of
judges.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Certainly, Senator. Thank you for the
question. I can think of two observations from my time serving
as a Federal Public Defender that I think will bode well for me
in serving the public as a judge, if confirmed. First is the
importance of listening and the importance of being heard. It
is actually something I learned well before I went to law
school from my mother when she served as a judge. She often
talked about the importance of letting people make sure they
have been heard by the court, because it is easier for people
to accept even adverse rulings by the court when they at least
know they have been heard. That is built into our system of due
process, which involves an opportunity to be heard.
A cousin to that is listening. I gained an
extraordinarily--extraordinary amount of experience listening
as a Federal Public Defender, listening to the views of
opposing counsel, prosecutors about their views of the case to
find out where we might negotiate, where we might find common
ground; listening to the stories of my clients to understand
why and how they came to be standing before the court and what
their fears and questions were; and listening very carefully to
the questions that piercing trial judges and appellate judges
were asking me about the case. Being a Federal Public Defender
sharpened my listening skills, and I know that even though the
job of advocate and judge are completely different, one skill
that should translate well for me is that of listening because
circuit judges, above all, must listen to the parties before
they even attempt to reach a reasoned decision.
The other observation from my time in the criminal justice
system as an advocate is the importance of setting aside
personal convictions, personal opinions. At the Federal Defense
Program, we represented whoever walked in the door charged with
whatever crime, so long as they needed an attorney, so long as
they were poor and working class and could not afford an
attorney. That is what the Constitution and the caselaw
dictated. With each and every case, I had to put aside any
personal opinions I would about my client and any personal
opinions I had about what they were accused of or the behavior,
and represent them zealously in the courts. Again, even though
the role of advocate and judge are completely different, that
is one similarity. Like a Federal Public Defender, a judge has
to set aside their personal opinions and their personal
convictions in decision-making. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thank you. Senator Grassley.
Senator Grassley. Yes. I am going to start with Jackson-
Akiwumi. During the most recent seventh circuit hearing, we
heard about the supposed link between Indiana gun shows and
street violence in Chicago. For 4 years, you represented a man
who during 1 year had bought nine firearms in Indiana gun
stores and proceeded to sell them without a license to people
in Chicago, including at least one felon. He was investigated
when the police in Chicago recovered seven firearms that he had
bought in Indiana. You said in the pretrial motion that, ``This
case is not about gun violence or gangs in Chicago.'' Do you
stand by the view that a case about illegal firearms traffic
from Indiana to Chicago is not about guns, violence, or gangs
in Chicago?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, I lived in Chicago for many,
many years, my formative years as an attorney and just as a
private citizen, so I am all too aware of the crisis regarding
guns that Chicago faces and so many other communities face. It
affects me personally as a--as a citizen. I stand by my
commitment and the oath that I took as an attorney, which is to
represent zealously everyone who requires representation in our
Federal courts, and that is without regard to the crimes they
are charged with. That is how our system works best.
If you look at the Sixth Amendment and how the Supreme
Court has interpreted the Sixth Amendment in Gideon v.
Wainwright, it talks about the right to counsel, and there is
no limitation on that based on what someone is charged with.
Senator Grassley. I think I will accept that answer. Going
on on the same case, do you agree that vigorously prosecuting
unlicensed firearm traffickers is the best way to stop pipeline
of illegal guns into the city of Chicago? That should be an
easy one to answer.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, thank you for the question. I
think there are a number of tools in the tool book for
combating an issue like guns and gun violence. Prosecution is
one tool. I also know that this body and other legislative
bodies at every level--State, Federal, and local--have to
consider these issues and have been working on these issues
vigorously. There are just a number of tools out there.
Senator Grassley. Thank you. Last question on that case.
No, it is not really on that case. Just give me a very rough
idea of how many firearm traffickers you have defended in
court. Just a rough number.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, I appreciate the question. It
actually would be hard to say. I have always described my
career over a decade like this. About a third of my cases
involved a panoply of fraud. There are so many frauds in the
United States Code book, it would--it would blow your mind. A
third of my cases involved drugs and firearms, whether it was
possession of firearms, trafficking of firearms. Then about a
third of my cases involved a big mix of everything else, from
bank robbery to immigration offenses, sex offenses. It would be
difficult to give you an exact number right now.
Senator Grassley. I accept that answer. Second point with
you. In your sentencing memoranda, you repeatedly highlighted
the sentencing differences that exist between Black defendants
and white defendants charged with the same crime. In fact, you
have gone so far as to argue that your Black clients should not
receive a sentence higher than any applicable mandatory
minimums ``to avoid further entrenching and approving racial
disparities.'' As a sitting Senator, I agree with your policy
points about racial disparities in the laws we write, but I
have concern about the courts engaging in those policy
arguments. When you made these arguments in court, did you
expect district judges to let broad social policy concerns
govern how they applied the law in the case before them? Maybe
I can give you a short answer. You would say they should apply
the law, not the policy, right?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, yes, because that is actually
the law that Congress passed. Congress passed the sentencing
statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(A), and one of those factors
Congress has said that judges should consider is disparities,
any disparities that might result from the sentence the judge
imposed. In those cases like the one that you provided an
example of, I was asking the court to apply that statutory
sentencing factor.
Senator Grassley. Okay. Another question. If district
judges should let policy concerns governing how they apply the
law, would it be right for them to give white defendants longer
sentences than the facts require in order to correct racial
disparities?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, every sentencing judge that I
have ever appeared before has been guided by the same statute I
have referred you to, Sec. 3553(A), which sets forth at least
seven sentencing factors, including disparities. Everyone in
the system, both the judge and the attorneys, are operating
within that framework that Congress provided. If confirmed,
that is the exact framework that I would be looking to in order
to review any sentencing decisions by judges.
Senator Grassley. I accept that.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Okay.
Senator Grassley. As an appellate judge, would you have the
ability to take social facts, such as racial disparities, into
consideration when reviewing a sentence?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, what guides for circuit
judges, and what would guide for me if confirmed, is the law,
and applying the law to the facts of any given case. That is
purely what guides.
Senator Grassley. I think I am going to take my last--I am
going to send questions of you for an answer in writing so I
can ask Judge Jackson only one question.
You have worked on sentencing reform, and as someone who
has worked hard on the First Step Act and other issues of
criminal justice reform, I really appreciate your work on
sentencing reform. When it comes to more sentencing reform,
people like you and Judge Bill Pryor both agree sentencing
needs to be reformed. Can you explain how your views differ
from Judge Pryor's, or, specifically, why do you trust judges
with more discretion when it comes to sentencing than Pryor
does?
Judge Jackson. Thank you for that question, Senator. First,
let me just say, as a former member of the Sentencing
Commission, thank you for your work. I know that the Chairman,
that you, that Senator Lee, and others on this Committee were
very, very active in making changes to the sentencing system
partly because the Commission did research and pointed out to
you some of the disparities in our laws, and Congress has made
changes that have been very beneficial to the system.
I did have the privilege of serving with Judge Pryor. We
were on the Commission together, and he and I both did talk
quite a bit about--in our public statements and in the
meetings, about the need for reform and how do we change the
system after the Supreme Court's decision, making the
guidelines advisory, and not binding anymore on judges. I would
say my primary answer is because, in my experience, most judges
really do not like to be outliers when they are sentencing.
Most judges really do want to do something that is consistent
not only with the law, but also with what similarly situated
other defendants are getting in their district.
In my view, instead of more, you know, mandatory minimums
or prescriptions that actually bind judicial discretion, if we
could just give judges more information, that turning to a
repository of information, like the Sentencing Commission, that
captures every sentence that Federal judges give, and then
giving judges access to that information is a way of ensuring
that judges are handing out fair sentences that are similarly
situated to other defendants. I think Judge Pryor tends to--he
said that we need to do a little bit more to constrain judicial
discretion, but my hope and faith is that judges will constrain
themselves to an extent when they get the information that they
need.
Chair Durbin. Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
According to the Center for American Progress, only 1 percent
of sitting circuit judges have spent the majority of their
career as public defenders or within a legal aid setting. In
light of this fact, I just want you to know that I am very
pleased that we are considering two nominees today with
extensive service as public defenders. I want to ask you this
question. There are some critics who claim wrongly, in my book,
that a public defender cannot function as an impartial judge.
How do you respond to this question? The judge may go first.
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I have been a judge for
8 years, and, as I mentioned at the outset, I think that
actually having defender experience can help not only the judge
him or herself in considering the facts and circumstances in
the case, but also help the system overall in terms of their
interactions with defendants and the way in which they proceed
in the courtroom. I would think that there would be no
difference between defender experience and prosecutorial
experience from the standpoint of whether or not someone can do
what the law requires, and many, many prosecutors have been
appointed as judges.
When you become a judge, you take an oath to look only at
the law in deciding your cases, that you set aside your
personal views about the circumstances, the defendants, or
anything else, and you--and you apply the law. I would--I guess
I would just say that I would not see any distinction between
people with prosecutorial backgrounds and defense backgrounds
in their ability to stay true to their oaths.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you. Judge Jackson, also I was
impressed to learn that, according to the Alliance for Justice,
you have a reversal rate of less than 2 percent of your more
than 550 decisions since assuming the role of U.S. District
Judge for the District of Columbia. To what do you credit that
98-percent affirmative rate on appeal?
Judge Jackson. Oh, thank you, Senator. I think it might be
my methodology in the way that I approach cases. What I will
say about that is that when I get a case, if you look at my 550
cases, you will see that there is a consistency in the way in
which I am analyzing the issues. I am applying a particular
method, as the Supreme Court has directed, which is that I am
looking only at the arguments that the parties have made, at
the facts in the record of the case, and at the law as I
understand it, and I am sticking very closely to those three
inputs. I am also applying the same amount of analytical rigor
to my analysis of those inputs.
As a result, I think I am not making many errors, although
the DC circuit tells me that I do occasionally, but I am doing
that because I want to see every case through the same
analytical lens. It does not make a difference whether or not
the argument is coming from a death inmate or the President of
the United States, I am not injecting my personal views. I am
looking at those three things, and I think by being very
methodical, I have been able to produce opinions that the
circuit can see my reasoning and they understand that I am
evenhandedly applying the law in every case.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you. I would like to ask the other
candidate here, since the Supreme Court held in U.S. v. Booker
that Federal sentencing guidelines are not binding on judges at
sentencing, we have seen a gradual return to discrepancies in
the way different judges at different courts sentence those
before them. How do we ensure fairness and consistency in
sentencing while maintaining judicial discretion consistent
with the Supreme Court's ruling in Booker?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator Feinstein, thank you for what
is really an incredibly difficult question that you have
rightly recognized. That is, in fact, why the guidelines were
invented created to avoid disparities, and then that is why
they were moved from mandatory to advisory to remove
disparities and give judges more discretion. Sitting here
today, what I know is that it would not be my role as a circuit
judge, if confirmed, to opine on those issues and sort through
those issues in the way that, for example, the Sentencing
Commission would and this body would, and--but my role would be
to review cases very carefully, review the record scrupulously
to see if sentencing judges at least adhered to the sentencing
law and took into account fairly all of the factors that they
were supposed to.
If I may address your earlier question about public
defenders being able to be fair and neutral judges, I will note
that in the Northern District of Illinois, this body has
confirmed a few district court judges at the district court
level with public defender experience. Those judges have been
serving a long time, and they are all doing so diligently,
fairly, neutrally, impartially. I will also note that my entire
career, I have had to work within the framework of the rule of
law. Every argument I ever made to a court was grounded in a
Constitution or a statute. You do not get anywhere with our
fine judges of the Northern District of Illinois and the
seventh circuit if you make up arguments that do not have a
basis in law. I have even had to advise clients when the law is
not on their side, when they had an argument that they hoped we
might be able to make, and I did the research or I knew
immediately that there was no law to support that argument.
That happened many times.
I am confident that I can serve, if confirmed, as a
neutral, fair, impartial judge who works within the rule of
law. I have had to do it my entire career.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mr.
Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Senator White--Senator Cornyn. I am sorry.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say to both
of the nominees, I very much appreciate the fact that both of
you have had extensive trial court experience as practitioners
and as a judge in the case of Ms. Jackson. I think that is a
very important qualification for somebody who is going to sit
in judgment on an appellate court, that they actually know how
the trial courts operate and understand the appropriate
standards of review on appeal. Both of you have a very
impressive background. I agree with my colleagues that it is
important to have--the public have confidence in the judiciary.
I think part of that confidence is knowing that people like
them can be--serve on the bench and that we applaud that
diversity.
I have noticed a difference in the way those issues have
been treated in the past when my Democratic colleagues blocked,
for example, Janice Rogers Brown, an African American on the DC
circuit, Miguel Estrada. Thankfully, we have had some great
judges in the--in the Western District, the Northern District
of Texas, people like ADA Brown and Jason Pulliam in San
Antonio, and then Asian-American circuit court judge, Jim Ho,
who was confirmed for the fifth circuit. Since our Democratic
colleagues seem to be placing so much emphasis on race and--I
just want to ask this question. None of us can choose our
parents, and even if we could choose our parents, I suspect
that most of us would choose the very parents we have. What
role does race play, Judge Jackson, in the kind of judge that
you have been and the kind of judge you will be?
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I do not think that race
plays a role in the kind of judge that I have been and that I
would be in the way that you asked that question. I--as I
mentioned to Senator Feinstein, I am doing a certain thing when
I get my cases. I am looking at the arguments, the facts, and
the law. I am methodically and intentionally setting aside
personal views, any other inappropriate considerations, and I
would think that race would be the kind of thing that would be
inappropriate to inject in my evaluation of a case.
I would say that my different professional background than
many of the court of appeals judges, including my district
court background, which will be different, if I am confirmed,
than many of my colleagues, would bring value. It is sort of
like the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote that, ``The life of the
law is not logic. It is experience.'' I have experienced life
in perhaps a different way than some of my colleagues because
of who I am, and that might be valuable--I hope it would be
valuable, if I was confirmed to the court--the circuit court.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you very much. Ms. Jackson, the same
question for you, please.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you Senator. I agree with Judge
Jackson that I do not believe race will play a role in the type
of judge that I would be if confirmed. I do believe that
demographic diversity of all types, even beyond race, plays an
important role in increasing public confidence in our courts,
and increases the public's ability to accept the legitimacy of
court decisions. It is very akin to the way in which we
guarantee a jury of one's peers, and the idea that you walk
into the courtroom and 12 people from all kinds of different
backgrounds might decide your case. I also think that
demographic diversity of all types helps us achieve a role
modeling result for young students, law students, young
lawyers. It is important for anyone aspiring to public service
to know that that path is open to all.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you very much for that answer. For
what it is worth, I agree with you. It is well said. Judge
Jackson, I just have a few questions for you. You know, in this
town, there are lot of people expressing themselves on a
variety of topics, and I know you are not responsible for what
these third parties are saying. I just want to ask you, first
of all, are you familiar with an organization called Demand
Justice?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I know of Demand Justice, yes.
Senator Cornyn. Do you know that they are spending money to
promote candidates--your nomination to this circuit court?
Judge Jackson. If you mean by advertising or placements in
various publications, I am aware of that.
Senator Cornyn. Okay. On their website, they say they
advocate adding additional seats to the Supreme Court. Do you
think Congress should add additional seats to the Supreme
Court?
Judge Jackson. Senator, as a sitting judge, I am bound by
the Supreme Court, and I do not think it is appropriate for me
to comment on the structure or the size of the Court, any more
than it would be for me to comment on the Court's rulings.
Regardless of the size, I would follow the precedents of the
Supreme Court.
Senator Cornyn. Demand Justice claims that the Supreme
Court is broken. Do you think the Supreme Court is broken?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I have never said anything about
the Supreme Court being broken, and, again, you know, I am not
able to comment on the structure, the size, the functioning
even of the Supreme Court.
Senator Cornyn. Finally, Demand Justice says that the
Supreme Court has been captured by partisan Republican
interests on their website. Judge Jackson, Ms. Jackson, do
you--do you agree with that or disagree, or do you have no
opinion? Judge Jackson first.
Judge Jackson. Senator, I, again, am not able to make any
comment about whether or not the Supreme Court is influenced in
the way that Demand Justice apparently, as you say, believes
that it is. I don't have a comment.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you. Ms. Jackson.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Yes, Senator. I am--I am not aware of
that quote by Demand Justice or anything they have said, quite
frankly. Likewise, the code of conduct for United States judges
does apply to nominees as well, and so, like Judge Jackson, it
would not be appropriate for me to comment on any type of views
about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's rulings would be
binding on me as a circuit judge.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you very much. Good luck to both of
you.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thanks Senator Cornyn. Senator Whitehouse.
Senator Whitehouse. Thanks, and welcome to you both to the
Committee. I am sorry we are so far apart and spread out here.
That is the nature of the--of the pandemic. Usually it is a
setting in which we can see one another a little bit better.
I wanted to ask you both questions about fact finding at
the appellate level. We had an interesting hearing in my Courts
Subcommittee yesterday on this very question. It was my
training in law school, my training when mentored by
experienced appellate advocates, and my mentoring when I was
trying to bring along other appellate advocates, to stay the
hell away from the facts because, really, the only two ways
that an appellate court gets to look at facts is either to be
asked to overturn a factual determination by the court below,
which is heavily defended by the clearly erroneous standard,
therefore, not usually a great avenue for appellate advocacy,
or facts that are really not in dispute, facts of which
judicial notice can be taken, that Christmas fell on a
Wednesday in a particular year or whatever. What are your
thoughts about the role of appellate courts engaging in fact
finding that is outside of the record that is presented to the
court either by Congress as it put together the statute that is
the subject of the challenge, or by the court below as it
assembled the record to support its decision? What, as an
appellate judge, do you get to do at that point regarding
facts?
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Let
me just say that my training was similar to yours in terms of
the judges for whom I clerked at the appellate level and the
way in which, at least I was taught to think, about the role of
the appellate court in terms of the facts. I do not, as I sit
here, know what the practice is in the District of Columbia,
and I will say that we have a little bit of an unusual docket
insofar as so many of our cases come through the administrative
process where even at the district court level, we are not
looking at trials very much, and we are not developing a
factual record very much. There is already an administrative
record that travels with the case.
Senator Whitehouse. Yes.
Judge Jackson. I think, you know, I would have to----
Senator Whitehouse. Let us say whether it is the
Congressional Record, or whether it is an administrative agency
record, or whether it is a trial court record, those are three
sources that an appellate court can draw from to determine what
the facts are in the case and to support or overrule the
finding of the District Court. What happens when a court goes
outside those records and starts finding facts on its own, sua
sponte?
Judge Jackson. Yes. I, frankly, do not know. I would have
to talk with my colleagues and look at the Federal Rules of
Appellate Procedure and the practices local rules of our court.
I am not sure the circumstance in which the appellate court
would feel at liberty to do that sort of thing.
Senator Whitehouse. Okay.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Yes, Senator. Broadly speaking,
Senator Whitehouse, Federal courts are courts of limited power,
and one duty of circuit court judges, and I remember this
fairly--very clearly from my time clerking on the Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals, is to be quite restrained. Federal
judges are supposed to be restrained and decide only the issues
that appear before them and no other issues. It extends, in the
way you described, to fact finding, so it would--it would be
from my experience, both clerking and then also litigating
before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, quite rare for
appellate judges to go outside the record. Sitting here today,
I cannot tell you a circumstance where I have seen it in my own
practice, so I cannot tell you what exceptions there might be
to make that rare thing happen.
Senator Whitehouse. Yes. The case that obviously comes to
mind that has enormous impact on those of us in the political
line of work is Citizens United, which allowed unlimited
amounts of money into politics on the predicate, on the premise
that all of that spending was going to be transparent and,
therefore, would not contribute to corruption or the appearance
of corruption in--of the political system. Of course, it is
indisputable that it has been anything but transparent, we are
well through $1 billion in anonymous political funding.
That fact that Justice Kennedy stood his decision on is
simply provably false, which then raises the question now, what
do you do about that decision? If that fact was the hinge upon
which the decision swung and the fact is false, where do you
go?
Judge Jackson. Senator, for lower court judges, we cannot
go anywhere really.
Senator Whitehouse. Yes, even when it is fact finding. I
mean, you are supposed to agree with the legal determinations
of the Supreme Court and to follow them, but it is an
interesting question whether a false factual determination by
the Supreme Court merits similar deference or the deference
that separation of powers puts the legislative and executive
branches under with respect to a Supreme Court decision. It is
something to ponder because it has not been the custom of the
Court to engage in this free-range fact finding, and
particularly false free-range fact finding. Some of the
political decisions of the Court have stood on false free-range
fact finding, and it raises this whole new interesting set of
questions about what do you do when the Supreme Court has made
a factual determination that is not supported by any record
that is provably false, that is essential to the logic of their
decision. Is it really true that all of Government is powerless
to address that error?
I have used my time. Something for you to ponder as you
move toward your seats on our circuit courts of appeal, which I
will strongly support. Thank you.
Judge Jackson. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to both of you
for being here today and for your willingness to serve in our
judiciary, if confirmed. I am going to dive right in. I have
got a number of questions. We will start with you, Ms. Jackson-
Akiwumi.
It has been widely reported that President Biden met with
you in anticipation of your nomination to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and congratulations again on
that nomination. During that meeting with him, did you--were
you asked for commitments regarding, or did you discuss
abortion, Roe v. Wade, the Second Amendment, or DC v. Heller,
efforts to defund the police, illegal immigration, any of those
issues?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. None of the above, Senator.
Senator Lee. Okay. Judge Jackson, what about you?
Judge Jackson. No, sir.
Senator Lee. Okay. Judge Jackson, in your notes for a
presentation that you gave at Columbia Law School in 2019, I
believe you said that, ``Disparities in judicial outcomes can
also occur when judges consider legitimate and relevant
factors.'' Talk to me a little bit about what that meant.
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. That presentation was a
symposium that I had been invited to to comment on an article
that was being presented, and the article itself was about
judicial bias, and I was critiquing it and making arguments in
response to it based on my experience. I believe that the--I
would have to see exactly the context of the quote that you
read, but what I was suggesting was the idea that, because the
factors in the law concerning something like sentencing are
open ended, that Congress says you have to sentence defendants
to terms of imprisonment that are sufficient, but not greater
than necessary, to promote the purposes of punishment, and it
lists the purposes of punishment. Any judge who looks at that
has basically those broad parameters within which to think
about how they are going to sentence. The judge then will have
to decide whether they are thinking about deterrence or
retribution or various purposes in order to determine how they
are going to sentence.
My idea was that a similarly situated judge looking at the
exact same set of facts, applying those factors in Sec.
3553(A) could reach a different result, so that you are going
to have sort of inherent in the nature of judicial exercise of
discretion in the world of something like sentencing,
disparity, unbeknownst.
Senator Lee. Thank you. No, that is--that is helpful.
Judge Jackson. Yes.
Senator Lee. In your--now, I believe you have been a judge
now for about 8 years, if I am not mistaken. In your experience
as a judge and prior to that, your experience as a lawyer, if--
would you agree or disagree with someone who said that that
most racial disparities in criminal--in criminal convictions
and sentences result from an unconscious racial bias of judges,
juries, and other judicial decision-makers? Would you agree or
disagree with that statement?
Judge Jackson. Senator, let me just say that as a judge
now, it is very important for me not to make personal
commitments about things like the question that you asked, that
my personal views about anything do not impact my rulings. I am
aware of social science research. There is a professor at
Harvard, Professor Banaji, who has done implicit bias work, and
there are studies from the Commission, when I was back at the
Commission in the policymaking role, that talked about and
indicated that all of us human beings can have biases that we
are unconsciously operating on, and that we have to think about
that when we are making decisions, and especially policymakers
in the criminal justice system.
Senator Lee. Now----
Judge Jackson. I am aware of those studies, but I am not a
social scientist, so----
Senator Lee. No. No, I understand that, and I am just
asking for your overall sense as a judge, and certainly not for
a commitment on social science. In 2019, in connection with the
same--with notes prepared in connection with the same speech,
you noted that, ``Observed inconsistencies are largely
attributable to factors other than group-based bias by judicial
decision makers.'' Does that ring a bell? Is that something----
Judge Jackson. Yes. In the context of the critique that I
was making, because the article had indicated that they saw--
they showed research that there were these demographic
disparities, and the article said that they were attributable
to bias.
Senator Lee. Right.
Judge Jackson. I was trying to give another perspective.
Senator Lee. Right. What are some of the leading factors
that is other than unconscious bias that you see having an
impact there that account for some of the disparities that we
see in convictions and in sentencing?
Judge Jackson. One of the things that I was aware of in my
time on the Sentencing Commission, and it is something that you
all have worked on, were the differences in statutory penalties
for things like crack and powder, that many, many----
Senator Lee. Vast disparities between what you get
sentenced for with crack versus powder cocaine.
Judge Jackson. Correct, and that it was having a
demographic effect because the research and statistics showed
that overwhelming number of defendants, who were convicted of
crimes involving crack, were African American.
Senator Lee. Thank you, and that is very helpful. I do want
to make sure I get to one other thing I wanted to talk to you
about before I run out of time. You have remarked that
Presidents are not kings. That is a comment that I have made a
number of times as well, and I tend to agree with it. Whenever
you are sitting in any court, from time to time you have to
review executive actions. It seems like executive actions have
more of a likelihood of coming up in the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the DC Circuit than many other places. Do you think it
would be appropriate under the guise of prosecutorial
discretion for any President of the United States to tell an
agency not to enforce a particular law?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I am unfortunately not going to be
able to engage in a hypothetical discussion, precisely because
those kinds of matters might come before me, and I do not want
to prejudge any case that might involve those facts. I do
understand the implications of the law related to it, but I
cannot tell you whether it would be appropriate or not.
Senator Lee. Okay. I would love to delve more into this. I
see my time has expired, but thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Judge Jackson. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Lee. Senator Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
Ranking Member Grassley, and congratulations to both of you for
your nominations and for your incredible work. Judge Jackson,
the last time that you were here in December 2012, then
Representative Paul Ryan introduced you. Do you remember that?
Judge Jackson. I do.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Saying, ``Our politics may differ,
but my praise for her intellect, for her character, for her
integrity is unequivocal.'' On March 23rd, 2013, you were
confirmed by this Senate by voice vote and have since presided
over many jury trials, bench trials, and written 562 opinions.
What have you learned during your time as a district court
judge that will inform your service as a judge on the DC
circuit?
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I have been very
fortunate to work in a wonderful district with terrific
colleagues. What I have learned is a lot about agency practice.
As has been previously mentioned, I did not do agency work in
private practice or in my role as a Federal Public Defender. I
have learned a lot about how our Government works in talking
with my colleagues, and I am looking forward to if I am
confirmed, being in constant communication with other judges in
looking at some of these very, very complicated issues
concerning our Government and its operation. I have learned the
importance of having a collegial relationship with your
colleagues on the bench, and I look forward to continuing that
in my role as a circuit judge, if I am confirmed.
Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Over the course of your
service as a judge, you have ruled both for and against the
Government, including in Center for Biological Diversity, that
case are where you--McAleenan--where you rejected a challenge
by groups opposing the previous administration's plan to build
a wall along the southern border. How do you ensure that you
impartially review the facts and law when approaching a case,
and how will you apply those principles as a circuit court
judge?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I try to stick to the same
methodology in my rulings. I try to focus--I do focus on the
arguments, the facts, and the law, the binding precedents of
the Supreme Court and the circuit. I very much methodically
work through an analysis of those issues, of those inputs in
every case, and that helps me to not pay attention to who is
involved, whether it is, you know, a Government that is being
run by one administration versus the other. I am just focused
on the arguments that are being made. It is--it is funny
because my clerks, sometimes they say, your opinions are all
the same. Elementally, they all look the same, and I say, yes,
exactly. That is the point. That is what I am trying to do to
make sure that I am treating everybody equally, and I am not
paying attention to who is in the administration when I am--
when I am ruling on a case.
Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you very much for that
answer. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, again, congratulations to you. You
spent many years working as an advocate for various clients in
both criminal and civil cases with a breadth of experience. If
you are confirmed to serve on the seventh circuit, which I very
much hope you will be, you will have to impartially apply the
law. Can you say more--I know you talked a little bit about
your experience, but could you talk about how you view the role
of a judge and how it differs from that of an advocate, and do
you have any reservations about being able to set aside your
past advocacy when analyzing a case?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. As you
indicated, I have had a variety of different roles throughout
my career--civil litigator at large law firms, at a small law
firm now where I am a partner, or smaller, Federal Public
Defender, law clerk to two Federal judges. In each of those
roles, I have had to get up to speed in a variety of new areas
of law and represent different types of clients: corporations,
nonprofit organizations, individuals. I have enjoyed the
challenge and the variety, and that is what I fully expect to
encounter on the circuit court, if confirmed. I believe that
will be a transition that I am up to, and I also am fully
confident that I can apply the law neutrally and fairly as a
circuit judge.
As I indicated in one of my earlier answers, being an
advocate requires you to work within the framework of existing
law. You cannot go off on your own. I am prepared to work
within the existing framework of seventh circuit precedent,
Supreme Court precedent in reaching reasoned decisions.
Then finally, Senator, yes, I am aware that the role of
advocate and judge are so very different. As an advocate, your
positions are essentially given to you because you must
create--you are coming up with the best arguments for your
client, the best positions within the framework of existing law
to advocate what is best for your client. As a judge, you do
not come from that perspective at all. You approach each case
open mindedly--with an open mind, and you listen to the
arguments of both parties without a thumb on the scale. You do
the research. I am familiar with the fourth circuit, the
collegial atmosphere. You talk with your colleagues, conference
with your colleagues, and then you work through the law to get
to a reasoned result, and it is not at all dictated by a
position that you started with.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Very good. I think that is a good
description as well when you look at someone who served as a
public defender, and people may, of course, not agree with some
of the things that clients that you may have represented or
with crimes that were committed, but you have a job to
represent them under the law. I think it is that confusion of
those issues that have sometimes led the Senate to not confirm
some people, and I just see it as--having been in the role of
the prosecutor before, done a little bit on the public defender
side, more pro bono, just seeing that we have to differentiate
that, or we will never have anyone in these jobs that has been
as an advocate for clients on the criminal defense side. I
guess I would end with that area.
Judge Jackson, you spent 2 years as an Assistant Special
Counsel on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, later Vice Chair and
Commissioner. How has that experience informed your approach as
a district court judge for sentencing principles, and how will
that inform your work as a circuit court judge?
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. One thing that the
Assistant Special Counsel did was to work on the actual
drafting of the guidelines. Even apart from the substance, just
the meticulous work that was necessary to draft the guidelines
has been helpful in my drafting opinions. With respect to the
substance, understanding sentencing, understanding sentencing
policy and practice, it has really been useful for me as a
trial judge because, as I said, I have sentenced more than 100
people, and you use the guidelines manual, as the Supreme Court
directs, in order to do that. I came to the job with a--with a
sense of what sentencing was about.
I think that for appeals, my experience in actually
engaging in sentencings and understanding trial procedures from
the trial court perspective would be very helpful because the
court of appeals reviews trial court proceedings and
sentencings in criminal cases. I think that that perspective
should be valuable, if I were confirmed.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Thank you to both
of you.
Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Klobuchar. Senator Cotton.
Senator Cotton. Congratulations to you both on your
nomination. Is it Judge Brown Jackson or Judge Jackson?
Judge Jackson. Jackson, please. Thank you.
Senator Cotton. Judge Jackson, in your career before you
were a judge, have you ever represented a terrorist at
Guantanamo Bay?
Judge Jackson. About 16 years ago, when I was a Federal
Public Defender.
Senator Cotton. Okay. Was that case assigned to you as a
Federal Public Defender?
Judge Jackson. It was.
Senator Cotton. Who was the client that you had?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I do not remember the name.
Senator Cotton. Okay. Could we get that for the record,
please?
Judge Jackson. Sure.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Jackson-Akiwumi.
Senator Cotton. Akiwumi.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you.
Senator Cotton. I want to make sure I get it right. In your
legal career, have you ever represented a terrorist at
Guantanamo Bay?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. No, Senator.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. I want to speak about race
discrimination in the Constitution, Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Does
the Constitution allow the Government to treat Americans
differently because of their race?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. No, Senator.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. I am glad that we agree on that.
Judge Jackson. Same thing.
Judge Jackson. No, Senator.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. Let us turn to religious
liberty, if we can. The First Amendment protects the freedom of
religion. This also means the Government cannot institute
blanket policies that treat religious organizations, such as
churches worse than they treat secular organizations, such as
restaurants or clubs or casinos. Is that right, Ms. Jackson-
Akiwumi?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, the--the First Amendment
protects religious liberty, religious freedom, exercise of
religion, and those--all of those issues are being actively
litigated right now, including at the Supreme Court.
Senator Cotton. The Government cannot treat a religious
organization worse than they would a secular business, like a
restaurant or casino. Is that correct?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, you are referring to the
principal about neutral laws and that--there is a principle
there that if a law is neutral as to everyone, a religious
organization can be included. That--it is my view that the
Supreme Court is testing the area of that. For example, the
Supreme Court recently granted an injunction out of California
that involved one of those issues. I just wanted to be sure to
reflect the nuance there, Senator, and the fact that the
Supreme Court is working through those issues. I will also add
that First Amendment litigation has not been my area of
practice the last 10 years or even 16 years, but that is my
broad understanding of what is happening with the clause right
now at the Supreme Court.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. Judge Jackson.
Judge Jackson. Yes, Senator. I, too, have not had many
cases involving religious liberty issues. I have one right now
that might involve some of these issues, but I am aware that
the Supreme Court has rightly viewed the First Amendment right
to religious liberty as foundational, fundamental. It is in the
First Amendment, and the Supreme Court is working through the
doctrine. There have been a series of cases in the last few
years as the Court determines what it means to treat religious
organizations differently.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. Let us turn to the Second
Amendment, Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Do you believe the Second
Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms
for self-defense?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, the Supreme Court has said
that very clearly. That was Justice Scalia writing in Heller
that the Supreme Court protects an individual's right to keep
and bear arms.
Senator Cotton. Which has been extended to the State and
local governments through McDonald, correct?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. That is correct, Senator.
Senator Cotton. What do you believe are the limits on that
right?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. That is the very thing that circuit
courts across this country and the Supreme Court are figuring
out right now.
Senator Cotton. Have you--do you have any personal views on
that? Have you----
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. If I had any personal views, they
certainly would not be relevant to decision-making that I would
engage in as a circuit judge, if confirmed. I would be bound by
the Supreme Court's precedent in Heller, in McDonald, and any
of its progeny that develops.
Senator Cotton. Okay. Judge Jackson.
Judge Jackson. I agree wholeheartedly with what Ms.
Jackson-Akiwumi said. Any personal views regarding the
fundamental right to bear arms would have no bearing on my
decision-making concerning those issues, and I would be bound
by the Supreme Court's and the DC circuit's precedents
concerning the issue.
Senator Cotton. In Heller and McDonald?
Judge Jackson. In Heller and McDonald.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, do you
agree with Justice Stephen Breyer and the late Justice Ginsburg
that the Supreme Court should have nine Justices and Justices
should not be added?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, I will have to admit that I
am not familiar with their particular views on that issue, and
I do not think it would be appropriate, as I indicated in a
question from your colleague, for me to opine upon the
composition of the Supreme Court or what should or should not
happen. It is a question that this body must sort through. It
is a question left to the legislative branch and the executive
branch.
Judge Jackson. Yes, Senator. I am currently----
Senator Cotton. I will not even ask since you are sitting----
Judge Jackson. Okay. Thank you.
Senator Cotton. All right. Thank you both for your
testimony today, and congratulations again.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cotton. Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Durbin, and welcome to
our two nominees who are before this Committee today. Both of
the nominees before us are highly qualified and impressive
candidates, and both have demonstrated a commitment to justice
and fairness throughout their extraordinary legal careers.
Judge Jackson, some critics have pointed to cases where you
ruled against the Trump administration and somehow suggest that
is evidence you are biased. A review of your actual record
shows you have ruled both for and against administrations of
both parties, even on some pressing and important legal matters
with political overtones. Could you speak about some of these
examples and how it is a mischaracterization of your judicial
record to simply look at your record in the last 4 years?
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I tend to leave it to
others to characterize my record. I am doing the work of
analyzing the arguments and the facts and the law in every
case.
Senator Coons. Can I reframe that----
Judge Jackson. Yes.
Senator Coons [continuing]. If that would be helpful. Thank
you. If we try to assess a judge's record simply based on sort
of a scorekeeping of which administration either they were
confirmed under or they rule for or against, what does that
miss about a judge's judicial philosophy and qualifications,
and is that an adequate way to assess how you as a nominee for
an important circuit seat would approach a case?
Judge Jackson. I do think it misses quite a bit because,
as--I am applying a methodology as I go through my cases, and
it involves fastidiously looking only at the arguments that the
parties are making, the facts, and the law. Sometimes those
arguments are being made by one party or another in a
Government case, but that does not matter because I am testing
out the merits of the claims that are being made and how the
law--the binding law of the Supreme Court and the DC circuit
applies to those claims in light of the facts. If you look at a
judge's body of work, you will see that the claims, and the
law, and the facts do not vary really based on party. Sometimes
you are going to find cases in which the judge might rule in
favor of one administration. Sometimes you might find against.
That is not what is the driving force behind the judge's
rulings.
I have had cases, many cases, in fact, that I can think of
in which I have ruled partially for one party or the other.
That--``party'' meaning a party in the case, not a political
party--so that it is a split decision, and, you know, both
parties in the case are upset at the end of the day, but it is
because that is what I believe the law required. If the judge
is going to do their duty, they are not focused on the same
political dynamics that you are talking about that other people
try to find in their rulings.
Senator Coons. Can you both, but I will ask you to go
first, if I could, Judge Jackson, just speak to the value of an
independent judiciary, one that is insulated from temporal
partisan political considerations?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I think it is one of the bedrocks
of the rule of law, which, as you know, is a foundational
constitutional principle. It is what everything in our
Government is really erected around. If you do not have judges
who are able to do their duty, their Marbury v. Madison duty,
saying what the law is independent of the political branches,
then we have lost that very important check that the founders
wanted us to have. It is the way our Government was
constructed. The independence of the judicial branch is
crucial.
Senator Coons. Thank you. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, would you
also care to comment on the significance or importance of a
Federal judiciary independent from the sort of winds of
politics?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. I will say, Senator Coons, it is hard
to improve upon the answer that Judge Jackson just gave. I will
also add that I have clerked for two Federal judges, and every
single judge I have ever appeared in front--in front of seemed
to understand this foundational principle about their
independence. It does not seem to be in dispute among the
judges I have appeared in front of and worked for.
Senator Coons. My understanding is both of your parents
were also judges. Could you just fill me in briefly on what
motivated you to pursue a career in service, and, in
particular, in the law?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator. It is true. I grew
up in a family that very much valued public service. I always
knew that the bulk of my career would be spent working in the
public interest, so I am honored to have this opportunity and
the faith of the President and our community in returning to
public service. It is simply an honor. My parents have taught
me a lot throughout my life. In terms of their judicial
careers, I certainly witnessed my father do the very thing you
just finished discussing: rule without fear or favor and
understand his independence. I watched my mother put litigants
first, even at risk of her own body. She sat for hours on the
bench because she knew that litigants had taken time off from
work to come to court. Police officers were away from their
beat. Caregivers were away from their families. She did not
want to delay the administration of justice, so she sat for
hours without taking a break. I learned a lot about service
from my parents and judicial service long before the thought of
serving our country in this way ever came to me, long before I
was presented with this opportunity by our President.
Senator Coons. Last question. You would bring some badly
needed diversity to the seventh circuit of several kinds. The
Cato Institute had a study that showed there were four times as
many prosecutors as defense attorneys in the Federal judiciary.
In terms of background, life experiences, upbringing, racial,
gender background, having a more broadly diverse Federal
judiciary is a goal of this administration, and certainly one
that I strongly support. Could you just speak briefly to what
difference does that make, and why is that a value,
professional experience and background diversity, for our
Federal judiciary?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. As I indicated earlier, demographic
diversity and professional diversity certainly increase public
confidence in the court--in our court system. People can accept
decisions as more fair knowing that a broad array of judges
have considered the matter and the courts are not restricted to
just some. There is an important role modeling function so that
young people in our country--young students, law students,
young lawyers--know that the path of public service on the
bench is open to everyone, not just those who have taken a
certain career path. Then I hope to be able to bring something
to discussions with my judicial colleagues, if confirmed,
because of my experience, just in the way----
You know, I am aware of the collegial nature of our circuit
courts, and from clerking, I am aware that judges conference
after oral arguments to discuss their impressions about any
particular case. Just like a colleague with a background as a
State court judge might notice one fact in the record and want
to discuss that, or a colleague with a background in mergers
and acquisitions might notice another fact in the record and
want to discuss that, or a prosecutor still yet another fact, I
hope that I, too, can bring something to our discussion because
of my experience as a Federal Public Defender and, thereby,
enhance our collective discussion and decision-making.
Senator Coons. Thank you both. I really appreciate your
answering my questions. I look forward to supporting your
nominations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Coons. Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
nominees for being here. Congratulations on your nominations.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, if I could start with you, I want to ask
you again about the Reginald Taylor case in which I think you
served as a defense attorney. This was an armed robbery case.
When I asked you about your sentencing memorandum in this case,
you argued in that memorandum that the defendant should not be
subject to the 15-year mandatory minimum for--the armed career
criminal minimum, that is, should not apply to this defendant.
It was a mandatory minimum, so just walk me through this. What
was your argument about not applying a mandatory minimum
sentence? Is it your view that the judges should be free to
depart from those mandatory minimums? Help me understand your
argument there.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator, for the question,
the opportunity to address that. That argument was based on the
Armed Career Criminal Act, which stated--Congress stated that
defendants should only be subject to the mandatory minimum if
they had certain predicate offenses in their criminal history.
The predicate criminal offense that the Government relied on in
Mr. Taylor's criminal history was residential burglary. The
Supreme Court, and the seventh circuit, and many circuits
around the country were working through the issue of whether
residential burglary qualified as a predicate offense. We took
the position that residential burglary did not qualify as a
predicate offense, and if it did not, that meant the mandatory
minimum of the Armed Career Criminal Act would not apply in Mr.
Taylor's case.
Senator Hawley. Very good. That makes sense to me. Let me
ask you about something you wrote in that same sentencing
memorandum. You wrote that this departure from the--from the
mandatory minimum was appropriate because, and I am quoting
now, ``When Black defendants continue to receive a longer
sentences than white defendants for the same crime, no
additional time should be added to further entrench this
disparity.'' Is it your view that the Armed Career Criminal Act
or mandatory minimum sentences in general are racist and
inherently racially disparate?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, thank you for that question
as well. There has been research by the Sentencing Commission
and other agencies in our Government that have showed--have
shown--the research has shown the racial impact of mandatory
minimum sentences. It is an issue that this body and this very
Committee has considered. What I was referring to in that
portion of my sentencing memorandum that you quoted is the
Supreme Court law--there is Supreme Court caselaw that says
above and beyond a mandatory minimum, a judge does not have to
impose any additional time. If the judge, in her discretion,
feels that the mandatory minimum will impose what Congress has
stated the standard is, a sentence that is sufficient, but not
greater than necessary, then the judge does not have to add
time on top of that. The argument that I was making to the
judge was, look, court, if you feel the mandatory minimum
imposes a sufficient, but not greater than necessary, sentence
on Mr. Taylor here, please do not add additional time on top.
Senator Hawley. Let me ask you a question that I have asked
other nominees who have come before this Committee. Do you
think that the U.S. Criminal Justice System is systemically
racist or is infected with systemic racism and bias?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator Hawley, those are not terms
that I use. In the law, when we look at issues of race, we look
at discrimination, which has very specific standards under
Supreme Court and statutory law in terms of making findings.
Courts will be generally looking for attorneys to prove up
discriminatory intent, discriminatory impact, in some cases,
retaliation. There is no Supreme Court doctrine that speaks to
systemic racism, and it is certainly not a--those certainly are
not words that I have ever used in a court of law to make
claims based under the Constitution or the applicable statute.
Senator Hawley. Those are, just to be clear, that is--those
are not words, descriptors you would use to describe our
criminal justice system as it currently exists.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. That is certainly not the way, as an
advocate, I would be able under the law to approach any case
involving race.
Senator Hawley. Very good. Let me ask you about the Adam
Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. In a presentation you
did for the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education,
you stated at the time that the law includes a new mandatory
minimum condition--mandatory condition, rather, of electronic
monitoring for all persons who are charged with a long list of
sexual abuse or pornography crimes, including failure to
register as a sexual offender under the appropriate statute. In
your presentation to other defense counsel, you noted that a
number of district courts had found this act unconstitutional
as a violation of the excessive bail clause of the Eighth
Amendment, procedural due process ground under the Fifth
Amendment, and separation of powers doctrine.
I just want to ask you about this since you were advocating
these--making these arguments to other defense counsel. Do you
believe that the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is
unconstitutional on Eighth Amendment grounds?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Sitting here, Senator, I actually
cannot remember that presentation that you are referring to or
anything I might have said in that presentation. What I can
tell you is that, if confirmed as a judge, I am certainly bound
by the statutes of this body, and would be called upon to apply
them to the facts of any case that is before the seventh
circuit.
Senator Hawley. Very good. I wanted to ask you the same
question about the statute being unconstitutional on Fifth
Amendment grounds or separation of powers grounds. Is your
answer the same for those as well?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Yes, Senator. I am sorry. I do not
recall that presentation or the content.
Senator Hawley. That is fine. What we will do is I will
give this to you as a question for the record, which will give
you the opportunity to go back and look at your notes, and you
can get back to us on that one you have had a chance to review.
Just in my final moments, I wanted to say, Judge Jackson
that I noticed--I think I am right about this--that you served
as some years ago on the Board of Montrose Christian School. Is
that right? Have I got--have I got that right?
Judge Jackson. Yes, Senator, for about a year.
Senator Hawley. Got it. I mention it because I noted in the
Board's Statement of Faith at the time, it said that, ``We
should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the
sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.''
It went on to say that, ``Children from the moment of
conception are a blessing and heritage from the Lord.'' The
school also took the position that, ``Marriage is the uniting
of one man and one woman in a covenant commitment for a
lifetime, and that the State has no right to impose penalties
for religious opinions of any kind.'' Those are positions that
I happen to agree with, which is beside the point. I raise them
because I distinctly recall that Justice Amy Barrett was
attacked for serving on the Board of Trinity School, which took
similar positions. I defended her at that time. I would
certainly defend your right to religious liberty and to serve
on this board, whatever your opinions may be at the same time.
I take it that from your service that you believe in the
principle and the constitutional right of religious liberty. Is
that fair to say?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I do believe in religious liberty.
That is a foundational tenet of our entire Government, our
constitutional scheme. The Supreme Court has made clear through
its caselaw that governments cannot infringe on people's
religious rights. Those ideas, that concept comes from my duty
to observe Supreme Court precedent, to follow its tenets, not
from any personal views that I might have, and any personal
views about religion would never come into my service as a
judge.
I would also say that I have served on many boards, and
that I do not necessarily agree with all of the statements of
any--or all of the things that those boards might have in their
materials. The statement that you read, I am not even sure that
was something that was in the school's circumstances at the
time that I was there because I was not aware of that. In any
event, I do believe in religious liberty, yes, Senator.
Senator Hawley. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both
for your willingness to serve. Thank you to your families who
are undoubtedly very, very proud of you, justifiably so, and I
am proud to be here as a Member of the Judiciary Committee to
be involved in your confirmation. I will support you because
you are both superlatively well qualified by your academic
background, your professional standing, your service to our
Nation, and your families'.
I want to just begin by saying that you both have
backgrounds as public defenders. I served for 4\1/2\ years as
United States attorney in Connecticut, the chief federal
prosecutor. I then was attorney general of our State for 20
years, involved in law enforcement. I really welcome the
President's emphasis on elevating and showing that public
defenders are as deserving, by virtue of their background, to
appointment as a Federal judge as a prosecutor, as anyone else.
I know that the positions are very competitive now, but public
defenders bring a perspective to judging that prosecutors may
not, just as people who come from private practice bring a
different perspective. I congratulate and thank you for your
backgrounds as public defenders.
Likewise, I think diversity is very, very important on both
of the circuits that you will join. The seventh circuit
presides over 7.5 million people of color, and its jurisdiction
includes Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indiana--Indianapolis, among
other cities. Yet all of the judges currently sitting on the
court are white. In 2021, I am dumbstruck. It is breathtaking
that a Federal circuit court in any part of our country is all
white, and I have remarked on this point before. Just to say it
again. Again, thank you to the President, thank you to you for
helping to correct this injustice which undermines the faith of
the public in our judiciary.
The reason that we are still as strong and resilient as we
are as a democracy is because of an independent judiciary that
has had the courage to stand up to the kind of potential abuse
in our democracy that we have seen, the contempt for the rule
of law that we have seen at the highest places in a past
administration. I want to avoid unnecessarily going into
politics here, but I do think that we are at a moment when we
need to thank the judiciary as an independent branch of
Government, most especially our district courts, our courts of
appeals, for continuing to stand strong for our democracy. I am
proud to support you.
I just want to ask each of you roughly the same question I
asked Judge Jackson 8 years ago as a nominee for the district
court about your positions on sentencing discretion. This issue
is critically important now as we approach the Justice in
Policing Act and possible revisions to our law to make it
fairer and more just. Sentencing is an enormous power. You will
not have it as circuit court judges, but I would be interested
in your views as to when departures from the sentencing
guidelines are justified and some of the more common reasons
there ought to be for departing from those sentencing
guidelines. Perhaps you could give us the benefit of your
experience on that point?
Judge Jackson. Senator, thank you for that question. The
sentencing system has gone through different phases, and we are
now at a point in which not only do we have the guidelines
manual and the departures that are in the manual. As a result
of the Supreme Court's decision in Booker, now judges can use
the guidelines as a starting point for their analysis, and they
can determine whether the guideline sentence and any departures
are a sufficient penalty for the case. What that has meant is
that in some districts, judges do not depart in the same way.
The departures are grounds within the guidelines manual for
imposing a sentence that is different than the one that comes
out just from the initial calculation. In the guidelines
manual, there is a lot of room for judges to take into account
certain factors concerning the circumstances of the individual
in departing. In my district, I know the judges tend to, what
we call, vary from the guidelines as well in circumstances in
which, let us say, the age of the person may mean that the
guideline penalty is too much. There are lots of different
reasons--mental health reasons are in the guidelines--but they
tend to be factors that have to do with the individual. Then
there is also the most prevalent departure, which is one that
prosecutors actually recommend in a situation in which a person
is cooperating.
All of those factors enable judges now in our system to
impose sentences that are sufficient, but not greater than
necessary. Congress obviously, as the policymaking body, has to
continue to evaluate whether any changes need to be made.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator Blumenthal, this is my second
time saying it today, but it is hard to improve upon the answer
that Judge--very comprehensive answer that Judge Jackson gave.
She accurately described the sentencing regime I litigated
under for a decade, and in every case--in almost every case, I
will say, where judges departed from the guidelines and I was
representing a client, it was because of the presence or
absence of mitigating or aggravating factors. There would be
aggravating factors that warranted, in the judge's mind, a
higher sentence--guideline sentence in the rare case, and in
the more common case, mitigating factors that warranted a
sentence lower than the advisory guideline range.
In all of those cases, the judges were still operating
under the statutory framework that this body laid out about how
they should sentence. Only one of those many statutory factors
was the sentencing guideline, so there are many other things
that judges needed to look to. Thank you.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you very much. Thank you, both of
you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal. Is Senator
Tillis available remote?
Senator Tillis. I am, Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Please proceed.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To Judge Jackson
and Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, congratulations on your nomination. I
am sure your family and your friends are very proud of you, and
rightfully so. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to
highlight one of the key reasons why we have these nominees
before us today. The group, Demand Justice, a group I have
spoken about in this Committee before and I spoke about it when
Senator Whitehouse held a hearing on the issue of dark money
campaigns behind judicial nominations, that group is largely
responsible for the nominations that we have before us today.
Demand Justice is a dark money liberal group whose first
priority is getting left-wing judges who will follow a liberal
agenda instead of the Constitution, if confirmed. I should also
add Demand Justice is spending millions of dollars advocating
for the expansion and the packing of the Supreme Court. In
fact, they have been pushing for liberal judges since before
President Biden was even elected. Like many of us last year,
Demand Justice called on candidate Biden to release a potential
list of Supreme Court nominees, but he refused. However, Demand
Justice released a list of their preferred Supreme Court
nominees. The short list was first produced and released on
October 15th, 2019. Without objection, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to submit two documents that were on the Demand Justice
website for the first and the second list that I will talk
about in a moment.
The first list contained 32 names of bold progressive
leaders who would help rebalance the Supreme Court. According
to Demand Justice, their list included lawyers who have
championed progressive values as public defenders, public
interest lawyers, scholars, plaintiff's lawyers, and elected
officials. However, the two nominees before us today we are not
on the first Demand Justice list, but in April 2020, Demand
Justice released the second short list of their Supreme Court
nominees for soon-to-be President Biden to pick from. Both
Judge Jackson and Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi were on this list--on the
second list from Demand Justice, and now they are sitting in
front of this Committee today as nominees to circuit court
positions.
What changed between the first Demand Justice list and the
second one? In Judge Jackson's case, roughly one month after
the first Demand Justice Supreme Court short list came in, Ms.
Jackson--Judge Jackson issued a ruling in a case brought by
House Democrats who wanted to compel former White House
counsel, Don McGahn, to testify. We can debate the conclusions
of Judge Jackson--that Judge Jackson made. One thing is clear:
the 120-page ruling had a purpose. I think Rachel Maddow
explained the purpose of the 120-page ruling well. If the
production crew can run the video clip of Ms. Maddow, do so
now.
[Video is shown.]
Senator Tillis. Just to repeat some of the comments, the
ruling was written with a broad audience in mind. It is not
just a legalistic thing, kind of a judicial ruling, that is. If
this were an indictment, it would be a speaking indictment.
This is a ruling designed to be read by people outside of the
case. This case was one month after the Demand Justice Supreme
Court short list came out.
The Demand Justice released their second Supreme Court
short list in 2020, and Judge Jackson was added. How is this
any different from what Democrats have accused Republicans of
for the last 4 years, or is it suddenly okay when it is liberal
dark money--a liberal dark money group picking the nominees for
the highest courts in the country? Mr. Chairman, again, I would
like to have--seek unanimous consent to add the two short lists
from the Demand Justice website, and thank you.
Chair Durbin. Without objection, they will be.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Chair Durbin. Does the Senator have any further comment or
questions?
Senator Tillis. No, sir. I am clear.
Chair Durbin. Senator, I am going to ask Judge Jackson if
she would like to reply to your question or comment--it was not
a question--and it will be her decision. Judge Jackson?
Judge Jackson. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been a
Federal judge for 8 years, and I have a duty of independence. I
clerked for three Federal judges before I became a judge, and
they were models of judicial independence. What that has meant
is that I know very well what my obligations are, what my
duties are, not to rule with partisan advantage in mind, not to
tailor or craft my decisions in order to try to gain influence
or do anything of the sort. I have no control over what outside
groups say about my rulings. I have no control over what
reporters say about my rulings. To some extent, all of my 560
opinions are written for people outside of the case. They are
written for the public, they are written for the appeals court,
and they are written for the parties.
My statement is that I have always been an independent
judge, and I believe that that is one of the reasons why the
President has honored me with this nomination.
Senator Tillis. Judge Jackson, I said from the onset that
it was one of the factors, not all of them. I am sure your
jurisprudence weighed into it. Your response would read almost
identically to dozens of judges who came before the Judiciary
and they were--they were rejected out of hand. The fact of the
matter is dark money is influencing it. Demand Justice is
trying to expand the Supreme Court. You can understand after 4
years of hearing how the Federalist Society and other
organizations were a dark money group with malign intentions, a
group that is very much supporting you, why we would draw the
same conclusion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator, and let me just add one
other element. I did not want to incorrectly infer this, but I
want to make it clear, this hearing was scheduled today, not
because of any plea by any special interest group at all. The
nominees go through an extensive background check. All of them
do, and it takes some period of time before that is completed
and submitted to the Committee, to both sides of the Committee,
Republicans and Democrats. We have scheduled the five judicial
nominees today as soon as that process had been completed, and
it takes time some time. I am sitting here looking through your
questionnaires. I do not know how you managed to accumulate all
this information in response, but it was a good faith effort, I
am sure, to comply with everything under the law, and as soon
as it was ready, we set this hearing. No outside group demands
or pleas had anything to do with the timing of this hearing.
Senator Hirono, are you available by remote?
Senator Hirono. Yes, I am.
Chair Durbin. It is your turn.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Democrats have
long criticized the role of dark money in politics and
certainly in judicial nominees, so if what I am hearing is that
our Republican colleagues are now on the same page with us in
criticizing dark money, then we should all be voting for
legislation to require disclosure of dark money sources. I
welcome that change from the Republicans. I congratulate our
two nominees. You are eminently qualified. That is why the
President has nominated you for these important judicial
positions. Again, I congratulate both of you.
I ask the following two initial questions of every nominee
who comes before any of the Committees on which I sit. These
questions are, first question, since you became a legal adult,
have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or
committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a
sexual nature? I would like to each of you to respond.
Judge Jackson. No, Senator.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. No.
Senator Hirono. Next question. Have you ever faced
discipline or entered into a settlement related to this kind of
conduct?
Judge Jackson. No, Senator.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. No, Senator.
Senator Hirono. Both of you have served as public
defenders, and you have been asked some questions about that.
For Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, in 2014, you gave an interview to Yale
law women, in which you discussed being a Black woman attorney.
You described the burden you carry, like when a prosecutor
accused you of being overly aggressive and yelling just because
you forcefully made a point, but you also described the
benefits. You said, ``Sometimes my client's families are very
grateful to see me, a young Black woman, in a position of
power. I can inspire a client's child without even knowing
it.'' You are nominated to fill a seat in the seventh circuit,
which would make you the first Black person--person of color on
the bench. What is the significance of that fact to you?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator Hirono. I want to
note I would be the second person of color nominated to the
seventh circuit. Judge Ann Claire Williams served ably for
decades and retired in 2017. I indicated earlier, and I stand
by it, that there is the same role modeling function that I
played when I was an advocate that I was referring to in that
interview. Oftentimes, you can inspire a client's child without
even knowing it because it might be the first time that they
have seen a Black woman standing up in court before the bench,
and the same would be true if I were confirmed as a judge. I
could serve as a role model for any number of people coming
behind me, and that is not limited to people of the same race
or same gender. One can inspire any number of people, and I
would hope to do that through my service, if confirmed.
Senator Hirono. I very much appreciated your noting the
importance of demographic diversity and professional diversity,
such as being a public defender, to achieve role modeling that
you speak of. This kind of modeling truly should reflect the
diversity of our country. I very much appreciate your saying
that. Getting back to both of you serving as public defenders,
these are highly competitive and difficult jobs. I am sure you
could have been--gone to a prosecutor's office, et cetera. We
rarely have considered public defenders--defender nominees in
the Judiciary Committee. Can you talk a little bit more, both
of you, each of you, why you sought out these positions as
public defenders?
Judge Jackson. Senator, my service as a public defender was
a while ago. I am trying to think back on my reasons. I had
come from a staff position on the Sentencing Commission and was
working on sentencing--just a sentencing policy. I remember
thinking very clearly that I felt like I did not have enough of
an idea of what really happened in criminal cases, and I
wanted--I wanted to understand the system, if for no other
reason than to be a better policymaker at the end of the day,
although I did not end up ultimately doing that. I thought it
would be a good opportunity to help people as well. I come from
a background of public service. My parents were in public
service. My brother is--was a police officer in the military.
And being in the Public Defender's Office felt to me very much
like the opportunity to help with my skills and talents.
Senator Hirono. It sounds as though it is the kind of
experiential diversity that was mentioned. I think that is also
really important to understand, the people who come before you
and whose lives you can impact with your decisions. Would you
like to also respond, Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator Hirono. When I
initially applied to become a Federal Public Defender, I was
looking for a job where I could help protect constitutional
rights and work in that realm. I was really looking forward to
being a trial litigator and an appellate litigator. At the
Federal Defender Program in the Northern District of Illinois,
we represented our clients from arrest all the way through
appeal, even when they wanted to petition for cert in the U.S.
Supreme Court, which I did in in two cases, and I was also
looking to represent individual clients. At that time, I had
been a civil litigator for 3 years, and most of my clients, at
least on the billable side, were corporations, nonprofit
organizations. I was only representing individuals through my
extensive pro bono work at the firm, so I wanted to do it full
time.
Having had the benefit of 10 years of this kind of service,
I see I was absolutely right about the reward that comes from
helping our country to live up to its constitutional ideals in
the Sixth Amendment, that everyone should have the assistance
of counsel. What I also did not appreciate when I began, but
quickly learned over the course of that 10 years, was how
gratifying it was to walk with someone through the toughest
days and nights of their lives when they were being judged for
the worst moments in their lives, and to serve as a guide,
counselor, investigator, social worker, strategist, negotiator.
There were so many hats in addition to a trial litigator,
appellate litigator, oral advocate, written advocate.
There was no end to the variety of ways that I was being
called upon to help people and to help communities, and also to
even help victims because the system works when everybody is
abley represented, and certainly many of my clients were
clients one day, but they had been victims the day before. It
was a robust way to help our country live up to its
constitutional values, and it was really an honor and privilege
to do that.
Senator Hirono. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Hirono. Appreciate it very
much. Is Senator Blackburn available by remote?
Senator Blackburn. Yes, I am. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Durbin. Please proceed.
Senator Blackburn. I am so pleased that we have these two
nominees in front of us today. Judge Brown, I want to come to
you first, if I may. I know you are fully aware that you are
discussed regularly as a future Supreme Court nominee. Many of
our Supreme Court nominees are--they come from the circuit that
you would be serving on. We do have some that are advocating to
pack the Court and expand the Court, and I know that has been
discussed. I think Senator Cornyn talked with you about it
earlier. This is something I see as a dangerous proposal
because it would basically set up a judicial arms race. If
somebody adds, somebody else is going to add, and we know
that--it is said that even President Roosevelt's threat and
unsuccessful attempt to pack the Court was enough to intimidate
Justices.
First of all, do you believe that deliberately expanding
the Court to allow one President to pack it with their nominees
would undermine confidence in our laws and undermine the
separation of powers? Then, second, if they were to expand the
Court, if President Biden did that, would you accept Supreme
Court nomination under those circumstances?
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I am currently a sitting
judge in the lower courts, and as such, I am bound by Supreme
Court precedent and by Supreme Court rulings. I do not think
that it is appropriate for me to comment on proposals about the
structure of the Court, about expanding the Court, or anything
of the sort, just as it would not be appropriate for me to talk
about or critique or comment on Supreme Court precedent. I am
unable to answer your question----
Senator Blackburn. You are aware that groups that are
advocating for you support that.
Judge Jackson. Senator, there are lots of people who have
expressed their support for me----
Senator Blackburn. All right.
Judge Jackson [continuing]. I am gratified, but I am really
focused on this nomination, and I am hoping to be confirmed to
the DC circuit.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, I appreciate
the comments that you have had to say about diversity. I always
say that having a good input--having good relationships with
individuals who are different from me and who have different
points of view from me is something that is important to help
me in public policy and to do a better job in representing all
Tennesseans, so I appreciate the comments that you have made
there. I also noted, as I looked through your record, that you
have represented many different clients during your tenure with
the Federal Defender Program, and you have been a zealous
advocate for those clients. I want to draw attention to a case
where you defended a man who preyed on women for sex,
trafficked--prostituted them. His victims accused him of
physically restraining them with a firearm. Despite believing
all women, you called these women liars to cast doubt on their
testimonies, and claimed there was no evidence from the
victims' testimonies and their words were dishonest. In your
sentencing memorandum, you further shamed the victims' alleged
prior prostitution work to support a more lenient sentence for
your client. Do you support believing survivors of sexual
violence and crime?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator Blackburn, for the
question. I am not sure which case you are referring to. As we
have shown, I have represented more than 400 clients, and a
number of those cases were sex offense cases. What I can say is
that calling a victim a liar is not something that I have done
in court or in written record. It is certainly my job as an
attorney to examine the evidence and present questions about
the evidence to the court, where appropriate and where
necessary. Then the----
Senator Blackburn. Okay. Let us do this. Let me give you
the specific case, and you can submit in writing because your
sentencing memo is something that does cause me concern, and we
have been through a time where a previous Supreme Court
Justice, Kavanaugh, during that. We have got an issue right now
with Governor Cuomo and whether--knowing where you stand on
that, I think, is really important. I will get that to you in
writing. Is that okay?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Blackburn. Thank you. I appreciate that. Judge
Jackson, I want to come back to you. In 2019, you granted a
preliminary injunction against a DHS rule expanding the use of
the Department's statutory authority to use expedited removal
procedures. The DC circuit then reversed your injunction and
found that Congress granted the DHS Secretary sole and
unreviewable discretion on expedited removal determination to
enforce our immigration laws. Since the beginning of President
Biden's term, the amount of illegal border crossings has
skyrocketed, and it appears that we will exceed everything that
we hit at that border in 2019.
Last month, Border agents took over 170,000 migrants into
custody at the southern border, including 19,000 unaccompanied
children. These border apprehensions have hit a 15-year high.
The Biden administration's flawed immigration policy has only
encouraged more and more migrants coming to the country
illegally. On top of that, the administration is failing to
properly handle the surge in illegal crossings, and has allowed
our country's borders to be overwhelmed. They have even failed
to acknowledge the crisis exists. The administration's failures
have caused massive suffering and endangered communities, and
anyone who has not been to that border needs to go. I was
astounded.
Judge Jackson, do our Homeland Security officials lack
sufficient authority to act decisively and timely to keep us
safe and enforce these immigration laws?
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I have had a number of
immigration cases, and in those cases, like the one you
mentioned, what I am doing is I am evaluating the law, the
immigration law's very complex scheme, the facts in the
particular case and the claims that are being made, the
arguments of the parties. I am not assessing the policy. I am
not making a determination about--sort of in a general sense of
whether or not DHS officials have enough authority or any other
sort of policy consideration. Given what it is that I do and
that is in my purview, I cannot say whether they have enough
authority.
What I can tell you is that in the case that you
referenced, that I worked on, there was a disagreement. The DC
circuit disagreed with the way I would analyzed the statute,
and that sometimes happens. The judges disagree on statutory
interpretations, and so they made the ruling that they made,
and that is binding precedent now in our circuit for how that
statute is to be interpreted.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. All right. I have one other I will
submit to you for writing, and it has to do with the number of
reversals that you have had. I see Senator Booker there, and,
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the time.
Chair Durbin. Thank you very much, Senator Blackburn.
Senator Booker, are you available by remote?
[No response.]
Chair Durbin. I do not hear him.
Senator Booker. I have been unmuted. Sorry. I was having
trouble unmuting myself. I am grateful for that. I would like
to just first make the case, it was said earlier in a--in an
equivalency that was a bit stunning to me about outside groups'
influence on the picking of judges for the circuit, and the--
and the--in particular, the Supreme Court. I want to just say
that Joe Biden has said no such thing. In fact, he has directly
refuted questions about outside groups governing his decision.
He understands that this is one of the civically sacred powers
delineated to the President of the United States of America. It
is an executive power. I am sure he would feel that it would be
a betrayal of that power to farm out responsibility for making
choices to an organization, especially one that does not even
necessarily align with his principles, his values for
evaluating judges.
That is dramatically different than what President Donald
Trump--former President Donald Trump said, and I will quote
him. Trump promised that his judicial nominees would all be
picked by the Federalist Society. He also said that he had
turned to the ``Federalist people'' and to the Heritage
Foundation to assemble his initial list of 21 potential Supreme
Court nominees, which is basically saying that that sacrosanct
power vested in in President of the United States was being
turned over to organizations, and that, yes, that should bring
up questions for every Senator. Who are these organizations?
What are the money--what is the money and the interests behind
them? Is it dark money? Is it folks with agendas that cut
across the concerns that should be held by--in a bipartisan
manner by Members of Congress? This is a stunning departure
from our national history, and farming it out to such
organizations should be abhorrent to everyone. I just wanted to
make that distinction.
To both of our nominees, it is an extraordinary honor to be
sitting before you. This is a day that, to me, is worthy of
celebration given your backgrounds, given the uniqueness of
your careers, and I want to thank you both for being here. I
talk often about issues of race and diversity. Those have been
brought up by people--Members on both sides.
I just want to ask one question, and it is simply about
another type of diversity that is just not talked about enough,
which is the diversity of career paths. We just do not see that
many on the higher courts of our land, people that are not ones
necessarily having prosecutorial backgrounds, but people having
time working as public defenders. This is an ideal that goes
back to Adams representing the British who were involved in the
Boston Massacre, this belief that everyone deserves a defense.
I think it is noble work, and I think it brings a much needed a
bit of diversity to our judicial system, in fact, an urgently
needed level of diversity, to have people from both career
paths.
I would just love for both of you, and then I will take my
answers off--all back on mute and turn it back over Chairman.
For now, could each of you please maybe explain why it is
important to you to have professional diversity on the Federal
bench when appellate judges are deliberating as a panel or as a
full court? How does that diversity, your professional
experience, help to really inform their decisions, in your
opinion, and maybe a little bit about how each of your
experiences as public defenders affect your opinions in and of
themselves. With that, I will--I will go back on mute, and
thank the nominees in advance for their answers.
Judge Jackson. Thank you, Senator. I had the experience of
working as a law clerk for two extraordinary appellate judges.
I do not know yet. I hope to be confirmed and could see
firsthand what the deliberation process is, but I do know that
the judges meet and they discuss cases. In that context, it
seems to be quite typical for judges from all different
backgrounds--prosecutors, people who have worked in private
practice, people who have worked in other areas--to be able to
contribute to the discussions about the cases. I sort of look
at it from the Oliver Wendell Holmes view that, ``the life of
the law is not logic. It is experience.'' The more experiences
that can be brought to bear on our complex legal problems, the
better.
I also know from my experience as a district judge that
there have been changes in my own way of practicing, in my own
way of interacting with defendants in my courtroom that are
based on insights that I had from representing clients 16 years
ago when I was an assistant Federal Public Defender, and so you
learn things. You learn things from experiences that relate to
what you are doing in the judicial system, and they can be
useful in helping.
I told the story earlier just about the way in which I now
communicate, and forecast, and lay out for defendants what is
happening in cases. I do that because I was aware as a defender
of how many of my clients did not really understand the
process, and that was detrimental to their rehabilitation. I
work on that communication aspect based on my insights from the
time when I was a defender.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator Booker, I would only add that
the seventh circuit has judges from many different backgrounds.
There are State court judges who are now sitting on the seventh
circuit, law professors, people who have been--judges who have
been prosecutors, attorneys for the executive branch. I hope I
would just add to that mix because, as I reflected earlier, and
Judge Jackson also just referred to it, it is a collegial
environment, and judges spend time discussing together their
impressions of the cases in the effort to reach their
individual opinions in a case. I hope that my background as a
Federal Public Defender and, frankly, my background as a civil
litigator as well, will help bring something to the table in
the way that I know my colleagues' backgrounds already do.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Booker. Senator Cruz.
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congratulations to
both of the nominees. Judge Jackson, you and I attended law
school together.
Judge Jackson. We did, sir.
Senator Cruz. It is good to see you.
Judge Jackson. Good to see you again.
Senator Cruz. Congratulations. Let me start with a general
question to both of you, which is, how would you define
``judicial activism?''
Judge Jackson. I think judicial activism is when a judge is
unable or unwilling to separate out their own personal views of
a circumstance or a case, and they rule consistent with those
views rather than the law as they are required to do.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. I would give the same answer, Senator
Cruz, and also add, although judicial activism means many
things to many different people, for me it also suggests a
judge who goes outside--beyond the issues presented to the
court. Judges are limited. They have quite a restrained role in
that they are to only decide the issues presented to them, and
one form of activism is going beyond that.
Senator Cruz. What should a principal judge do if the law
requires one outcome and your own personal political policy
views are to the contrary? How does a judge resolve that
conflict?
Judge Jackson. Absolutely, the judge is duty bound to
follow the law. The law is the binding principle that guides a
case, and judges need to methodically separate out their
personal use. When I rule in my cases, I look at the facts, the
law, and the parties' arguments in the same way in every case,
and I methodically apply only those inputs because I am trying
very hard not to look at this case through anything other than
the prism of the binding precedents of the Supreme Court and
the DC circuit. Absolutely, there is no question that a judge
has to set aside their personal views about how a case comes
out and rule only consistent with the law.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. That is absolutely correct, Senator.
The roles of advocate and judge are completely different, but
in the same way as an advocate that I set aside my personal
opinions about my clients and what they were accused of or what
they were guilty of, I would also set aside, if confirmed, my
personal views, my personal convictions, if any, because the
law is what guides and should guide judicial decision-making.
Senator Cruz. What are both of your views on the notion of
a living Constitution and whether we have a living
Constitution?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I have not had any cases that have
required me to develop a view on constitutional interpretation
of texts in the way that the Supreme Court has to do and has
to--have thought about, the tools of interpretation. I am aware
that the Supreme Court, at least with respect to certain
provisions of the Constitution that it has already interpreted,
has looked at history and has focused on the original meaning
of the text, say, in the--in the Second Amendment context in
the Heller case. I just have not had any opportunity to do
that. I have worked with those kinds of materials. When I was
in private practice, I filed an amicus brief in which we argued
using English common law about whether or not the English
courts would have accepted evidence that had been extracted by
torture.
Senator Cruz. Was this the amicus you did in the Boumediene
case?
Judge Jackson. This was. This was.
Senator Cruz. Was that pro bono representation?
Judge Jackson. That was, and I represented 20 former
Federal judges who wanted to make that point.
Senator Cruz. What led you--look, with pro bono
representation that often reflects your own views. That is why
frequently lawyers take it on. What led you to want to take
that position----
Judge Jackson. Oh, I was not in--I was not working alone. I
was at a big law firm, and I was in their appellate division,
and it was a client. It was a group of judges who I was
assigned to work with as a part of that--my employment in the
law firm.
Senator Cruz. Did you agree with the position you were
advocating?
Judge Jackson. I was focused on my clients' interests. I
was doing what advocates do. I did not have a personal view
really of the issue other than just to make sure that I was
making the most convincing argument that I could make on behalf
of my clients.
Senator Cruz. Let me go back to the original question,
which is, do you believe we have a living Constitution?
Judge Jackson. I believe that the Constitution is an
enduring document. It is--it has--the Supreme Court has said a
``fixed meaning,'' that we are to look to the original words in
the Constitution and interpret as lower court judges would
interpret provisions the way in which the Supreme Court does,
and they look at the text and look at the original meaning. If
I ever had one of those cases, that is how I would approach the
task.
Senator Cruz. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, thank you for the question. I
do not find these phrases particularly useful as a lawyer. A
living Constitution is very similar to me like judicial
activism. It means so many different things to many different
people. I do know the Supreme Court has not used those terms. I
know that Chief Justice Marshall said that we have a
Constitution that was meant to endure for ages, which it has,
and to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs, and I
think that is what has happened with our Constitution over the
years. Beyond that, it is the supreme law of the land, and if
confirmed, I would be bound by the Supreme Court's
interpretations of the Constitution. It would not be my job to
make law.
Senator Cruz. If you could both tell me your view of the
importance of the First Amendment and, in particular, the
protections of free speech and religious liberty.
Judge Jackson. Senator, my view comports with the Supreme
Court's view because as a judge, I have to apply the doctrines
of the Supreme Court. It is very clear from the Court's recent
rulings from the recent COVID cases--Trinity Lutheran,
Masterpiece Cake Shop, and various others--that the Court is
looking into and is concerned about restrictions on religious
liberty as a First Amendment principle, as well they should be
because the First Amendment includes religious freedom as a
core constitutional right. My views comport with what the
Supreme Court has held about these things, and I would have to
apply the Supreme Court's principles in any of my cases.
Senator Cruz. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. I agree, Senator Cruz. The First
Amendment is fundamental, it is foundational, all of the
freedoms protected therein: speech, press, assembly,
petitioning for redress, and religion.
Senator Cruz. Thank you.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cruz. Senator Padilla.
Senator Padilla. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I
begin my questions, I want to take a moment to remark on the
significance of this hearing. As Chairman Durbin reminded us
and noted at the outset of this hearing, for the past 4 years,
the prior administration appointed 226 judges to the Federal
courts, almost 30 percent of the current Federal judiciary. An
overwhelming majority of those appointees, 189, were white, and
nearly as many, 171, were men. Over the course of the prior
administration, our Federal judiciary became markedly less
diverse. Today marks an important step in reversing that
trajectory and creating a Federal judiciary that reflects the
America that it serves.
This Committee has heard and will hear testimony from five
nominees, all persons of color and three women. They have
experience in public defense, prosecution, civil litigation,
municipal law, and military service. The diversity of
background and professional experience they offer to the
Federal judiciary, in addition to their impressive
qualifications, is remarkable and important. I hope, Mr. Chair,
and expect that this will be only the first of many such
nomination hearings of this Congress.
To my questions, the first for Ms. Jackson. If confirmed,
you will be one of the few former public defenders to serve in
this capacity. Can you take just a minute to speak to the role
and importance of public defenders to our criminal justice
system?
Judge Jackson. Senator, did you mean Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi?
Senator Padilla. Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi.
Judge Jackson. Yes, thank you.
Senator Padilla. Yes, I am sorry.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator Padilla. It is
foundational. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to
assistance of counsel, and the Supreme Court has interpreted in
that the right to counsel in criminal cases when one cannot
afford an attorney. This is important because the integrity of
our system depends on it. Judges make the best decisions when
they are presented with the best arguments from both sides, and
due process guarantees that, that people be represented and
have the opportunity to be heard, regardless of their ability
to pay. It was my honor and privilege to work within that
system for a decade to ensure that my clients were competently
represented regardless of their ability to pay and, frankly,
regardless of what they were accused of, and to help our
country live up to its constitutional values.
Senator Padilla. Just a follow on. Earlier in your career,
you spent about 3 years working at a corporate law firm with, I
am sure, very nice offices and a lot of resources and high
salaries, but you chose to leave that very comfortable path to
spend the next decade of your career as a public defender. Just
for a minute--just for a moment to reflect on what would prompt
you to make such a change.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, I am very grateful for the 3
years I spent litigating at Skadden Arps. It was a tremendous
experience representing our clients, which ranged from
corporations to nonprofit organizations, individuals. I gained
a lot of experience, tried my first jury trial, argued my first
case before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which--before
which I appeared many times after that as a Federal Public
Defender. I always knew that I wanted to return to public
service. I began my legal career serving the public as a law
clerk to two Federal judges, and I wanted to spend the bulk of
my career that way. This nomination by the President has given
me an opportunity to yet again serve the public, if this
Committee and the Senate as a whole so decides.
Senator Padilla. Thank you. My next question is for Ms.
Brown Jackson.
Judge Jackson. Thank you.
Senator Padilla. In the 8 years you have served as a
district court judge, you have presided over hundreds of cases.
In that time, you have ruled for both prosecutors and criminal
defendants, for workers and employers, for the Government and
those challenging governmental decisions. Is there an ideology
or philosophy that guides your approach to judicial decision-
making, and, you know, how do you view that changing, if at
all, if you are confirmed to the circuit court?
Judge Jackson. Thank you for that question, Senator. Not
really a philosophy, more of a methodology. It is the idea that
it is only appropriate for the judge to take into account the
arguments of the parties, the facts in the case, and the law
that applies in every case. I have found that if you do that,
you can be consistent in the way that you are analyzing the
issues, and you can set aside any thoughts about who is making
the arguments, what advantages any side might take away from
your opinions. If you have a fidelity to the rule of law that
is grounded in looking at only those inputs, then I think you
can rule without fear or favor, which is what I have attempted
to do.
Senator Padilla. I want to, as some of my colleagues have
already done, thank you both for your willingness to serve, and
thank your families for supporting your service because they
know it is not easy. In the last minute I have left, I ask you
both to briefly comment on what it just means to you personally
for you and for your family, for you to be here with this
opportunity before you?
Judge Jackson. Senator, I am fortunate enough to have an
office now that is just a few blocks from the National
Archives. Sometimes I go there and I reflect on the
momentousness of my duties, and the fact that I have had an
opportunity that my grandparents would not have been able to
even fathom. It is the beauty and the majesty of this country
that someone who comes from a background like mine could find
herself in this position. I am just enormously grateful to have
this opportunity to be a part of the law in this way, and I am
truly thankful for the President giving me the honor of this
nomination.
Senator Padilla. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator Padilla, I share a similar
sentiment. I am the granddaughter of a sharecropper. Three of
my four grandparents had only a 4th and 6th grade education,
but I also grew up with the precept, to whom much is given,
much is required. Despite those humble beginnings, my family
has always been one that valued education, and I have been
given a top-notch education and top-notch experiences that I am
so grateful for.
I recall Attorney General Garland telling you all that he
believed it was the highest and best use of his skills to be
able to serve the country in this way now, and although I have
not been a circuit judge and I am certainly not the Attorney
General, I agree with Attorney General Garland. In this moment
now, to serve as a circuit judge at the request of our
President would be the highest and best use of the skills that
I have, and such a way to thank my family and this country for
the many opportunities that I have been given.
Senator Padilla. As a proud son of immigrants from Mexico
who had little formal education, but a work ethic that led to
40 years working as a short-order cook and a domestic worker,
who had an opportunity to study at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, earn a degree, and years and years later gets to
sit on this side of the dais, I thank you both.
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you.
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Padilla. Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Judge, counsel,
welcome. Counsel, let me start with just a few general
questions. Can you give me your thoughts about the meaning and
the importance, if you think it is important, of the adequate
and independent State ground doctrine, which you will probably
see a lot on the court of appeals?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Sure, Senator Kennedy. It is actually
a doctrine of the Supreme Court that governs when a case
presents Federal grounds, but if there is also an independent
and adequate State court ground that supports the decision, the
Supreme Court will not choose to take the case. The Supreme
Court is the body that has the ability to exercise that
doctrine. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, if I am
confirmed to it, would not have that opportunity because, as
you know, the court of appeals takes every case that is
appealed to it. It does not have the ability, like the Supreme
Court does, to pick and choose which cases it will hear.
Senator Kennedy. You are saying that the seventh circuit
cannot decide a case or invoke the adequate and independent
State ground doctrine?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator, there are other abstention
doctrines that would govern if the seventh circuit--if a panel
felt that there were State court questions that needed to be
resolved, so the Federal case should hold off for a bit, or if
there was an independent State court ground for the case that
necessitated a particular type of ruling. It would not--that
doctrine would not cause the seventh circuit to not take the
appeal--take the case to begin with. The seventh circuit has to
consider the appeal and then issue a decision, yes.
Senator Kennedy. Right. Right, but you are not saying that
the adequate and independent State ground doctrine is not
applicable to the seventh circuit, are you?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. I am saying that it is a doctrine of
the Supreme Court, and the seventh circuit has other----
Senator Kennedy. It is a doctrine of the court of appeals,
too, is it not?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. My understanding, and I will--I will
tell you, Senator Kennedy, that this is not an area I have been
litigating in the last 16 years, but this is my broad
understanding, that it is a doctrine of the Supreme Court.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. What is your definition of
``justice?''
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you for the question, Senator
Kennedy. Emblazoned on the Supreme Court across the street is
``equal justice under law.'' I marry that with the Ethical
Cannons and Codes of Conduct that apply to judges, and one of
them includes treating all parties fairly and impartially, and
acting with diligence, and upholding the independence of the
court. I think when you marry all of those concepts together,
then you arrive at, hopefully, what is justice for the parties
who become--who come before a court.
Senator Kennedy. Counselor, do you believe that crime is
a--is a disease that needs a cure, or is it antisocial behavior
that deserves punishment?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Senator Kennedy, neither of those
options are words I have ever used to describe crime, which has
been my province for the last 10 years representing people
accused of crime and who have pled guilty to crime. If there is
anything that my decades as a public defender taught me is how
gray everything is, and how there is often a faint line, an
indescribable line, sometimes a complicated line, from when
someone goes from being law abiding to breaking a law, and all
the reasons why that happens, and all the different ways we as
a society can address that. I hope to bring that nuanced
understanding with me to the circuit court, if confirmed. I
will be guided by the law and have to apply the law, and would
willingly do that to the facts of any given case, but I think
that nuanced understanding will enhance my ability to
understand the facts of any given case.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. Are you a textualist or a
purposivist?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Thank you, Senator Kennedy. One of the
things that I expressed to your colleague who asked a question
earlier about a living Constitution, and there was yet another
question about judicial activism, is that I do not find these
labels particularly helpful. They mean so many things to so
many different people. What we do know is that the Supreme
Court has instructed us that one of the first----
Senator Kennedy. Actually, counselor, I think they are
pretty standard definitions. Can you tell me which way you
lean?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. No, Senator. The Supreme Court has
instructed that one must first look to the text of the
Constitution, the plain meaning there, also the plain meaning
of the text of a statute. That method, the Supreme Court has
instructed judges what to do.
Senator Kennedy. Counselor?
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi. Yes?
Senator Kennedy. I am sorry to interrupt you, but my
Chairman is very strict on me, and I do want to get to ask the
judge one question in my 35 seconds. I am sorry to interrupt
you. Judge, you have been on the bench, and you have seen the
Federal judicial system up close, and I agree with you, America
is a remarkable country. Do you think the Federal judicial
system is systemically racist?
Judge Jackson. Senator, thank you for that question. I am
aware of social science research----
Senator Kennedy. I am sorry. I could not hear you.
Judge Jackson. I am aware of social science research----
Senator Kennedy. Yes, ma'am.
Judge Jackson [continuing]. In particular, in my former
area of expertise, which is in sentencing, that relates to ways
in which policy choices about various aspects of the system can
have demographic disparate effects. The most obvious one is one
that this body has worked on very hard, and much appreciated,
the 100-to-1 crack-powder disparity.
Senator Kennedy. Mm-hmm.
Judge Jackson. As a judge, I am not looking at systemic
effects. I am not thinking about, or focusing on, or forming
opinions about the research or the--or the circumstances in the
abstract like that. I am looking at each case. A person might
make a claim that they have been discriminated against in a
particular context, and I am applying the law to determine
whether or not the law sustains that claim. I do not really
have a frame of reference to answer a question about systemic
racism, but I am happy that you are thinking about those things
because they are in the province of the policymakers, like
yourself.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Kennedy, and I would to
like to thank our two circuit court nominees for your patience,
your endurance. Please be mindful that, as you have heard,
Senators may submit written questions following the hearing. We
would ask you to diligently respond as they are sent your way.
I am going to excuse this panel, and just in time--in the
nick of time comes the Senator from New Jersey. Have you voted?
Senator Booker. Yes, sir.
Chair Durbin. Good. Come right on up here because I have
not. Thank you to this panel, and I am going to ask the Senator
from New Jersey to convene the second panel----
Judge Jackson. Thank you.
Chair Durbin [continuing]. And prepare them for testimony,
and I will return briefly.
[Pause.]
Senator Booker. [Presiding]. Can I ask the nominees to take
their seats? I am actually going to swear them in first.
[Voice heard off microphone.] Yes.
Senator Booker. Yes, so forgive me. You all were right in
standing up and staying there. It is a long time since I had
Julien Neals telling me what to do every day, and Julien will
remember I am usually swearing at him, but now I will swear him
in.
Would you please raise your right hand and repeat after me
or--and answer this question?
[Witnesses are sworn in.]
Senator Booker. Thank you very much. You may take your
seats. Why do not we proceed with the testimony? We will start
with the Honorable Julien Neals.
[No response.]
Senator Booker. He seems to be having some technical
issues.
Judge Neals. I seem to be having some technical--oh, is it
on? Oh, thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. JULIEN XAVIER NEALS,
NOMINEE TO SERVE AS UNITED STATES DISTRICT
JUDGE FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
Judge Neals. First off, Senator, I would just like to thank
Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley, and sincerely
thank the Committee for today's hearing. Thank you to you and
also to Senator Menendez for that more than generous
introduction. Thank you also to both of you for submitting my
name to President Biden, and my thanks to President Biden for
this nomination.
I offer congratulations to my conominees. It is truly an
honor to share this experience with both of them, and I owe a
debt of gratitude for even reaching this point in this process,
and also to those who are with me today: my father, a World War
II Veteran and retired administrative law judge, Felix Neals;
my mother, retired teacher, poet, and actress, Betty Neals.
Their unending energy, encouragement, love, and support have
carried me to this point in my life and career. My sister is
also with me, college professor, world traveler, Felice Neals,
whose fearless, adventurous spirit has always been an
inspiration to me. My dearly beloved wife, Lauren Jones-Neals,
who has been a grounding, loving force in my life since my
second year of law school. Our son, Julien Keith, could not be
here, but he brings his love and perspective. He is finishing
up finals at King University, and, unfortunately, had to spend
his senior year remote with his parents.
Also in attendance is Anna Pereira, a tremendous former
fellow judge and corporation counsel colleague from the city of
Newark, and Arvelise Gonzales-Muriel, my assistant of 25 years,
which in and of itself proves her saintly qualities; my
brother, Felix, who is watching from Washington State. He has
been the best big brother anyone could ask for. I send love,
warm greetings, and thanks to family, the incredible
professionals with whom I have worked at the firm of Chasan,
Lamparello, Mallon, and Cappuzzo, the great city of Newark, and
the great county of Bergen, and to the many friends and
professionals who have wished me luck who are watching.
Finally, a special 21-year-old birthday wish to Julia Pessers.
Thank you, sir.
Senator Booker. Thank you very, very much. We will now go
on to Judge Quraishi. You may also make your opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF HON. ZAHID N. QURAISHI, NOMINEE
TO SERVE AS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
Judge Quraishi. Thank you, Senator Booker. I would first
also like to thank Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley
for scheduling the hearing for today, and also thank the
Members of this Committee for taking the time to consider my
nomination. I would also like to thank, of course, the
President for nominating me, and also my home State Senators,
both Senator Booker and Senator Menendez, for their
consideration, recommendation, and support of my nomination. I
share Mr. Neals', or Judge Neals', comments. Thank you, Senator
Booker, for your kind introductory remarks form earlier today.
I have a few folks with me that I would like to introduce.
First, my mother, Shahida Quraishi, is here. I do not have
enough time, Senator, to properly introduce my mother. What I
will tell you is that when I asked if she would like to attend
today's hearing, she said she would walk from New Jersey if
needed.
[Laughter.]
I hope that gives you some context for the love and bond
that I have with my mother. I would like to mention my father,
Dr. Nisar Quraishi. Unfortunately, my father cannot be here
today. He tragically passed away last year due to the COVID-19
virus. I know he would have been very proud to be here sitting
alongside my mother behind me, and I feel his presence today in
this room. I would also like to thank and introduce Jenny Chung
and Lee Vartan, two individuals very close to me who were
especially supportive of my nomination and supportive of me
throughout this process. They were kind enough to accompany
both me and my mother here today, and I am grateful to have
them.
Last, Senator, I would like to just address my children who
are back home in New Jersey, hopefully in class, but I have a
feeling they are trying to log into the video link to today's
hearing, my daughter, Zoe, and my son, Aiden, who I love very
much. I have said this before publicly and privately: I have
held many titles and many roles in my life. The one that means
the most to me in my life is that of being their father, so I
am grateful for the two of them, although they could not be
here today.
Senator, thank you for indulging me. It is an honor to
appear before this Committee with my friend, Julien Neals, and
Gina Rodriguez from Colorado, and I welcome the opportunity to
answer any questions you may have regarding my qualifications.
Senator Booker. Thank you very much, Judge Quraishi. Ms.
Rodriguez, would you please give us your opening statement?
STATEMENT OF REGINA M. RODRIQUEZ, NOMINEE
TO SERVE AS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Ms. Rodriguez. Thank you, Senator. It is my pleasure to be
here with you today, and I also wish to extend my thank you to
Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Grassley, and Members of the
Committee. I appreciate you holding this hearing to consider
our nominations, and I congratulate my fellow nominees today.
Thank you to President Biden for the honor of this nomination,
and a very warm thank you to Senators Bennett and Hickenlooper
for the confidence they have placed in me. It is very humbling.
I also thank former President Obama and Senator Gardner for
their support of my prior nomination.
I want to introduce to you now the Colorado contingent,
also known as my family. I am very proud to have them here with
me today: my husband and my partner, Arnold, in what will be 20
years of marriage in the next couple of days. Neither of us
imagined that our journey would lead us here, but we are very
grateful to be here; my daughter, Nya, who is a high school
senior this year. Her resilience and fortitude in this unusual
year has been inspiring. My son, Miles, who always makes us
proud in his feats in the classroom as well as on the football
and basketball fields; my mother, Linda Rodriguez that you have
heard some about. Her story is a journey in and of itself. My
sister, Marla, who works for Nine Health in Colorado, and her
husband, Noel Willis, who works for Denver Water. There are
many people who have supported and championed me to bring me to
this moment, too many to mention by name, but you know who you
are, and I thank you so much.
Thank you again for this honor, Senator, and I look forward
to the Members' questions.
Senator Booker. You all got me a little verklempt with your
families there. What extraordinary people you have behind you.
The journey to this moment for each of you is extraordinary,
but it is a tribute to the Nation that we all love. You are
sitting before the Judiciary Committee of the United States of
America's Senate, and it is a wonderful opportunity. Even
though you do not see a full cavalcade of Senators on both
sides of the aisle, I want you to know that this part of the
process, as spelled out by the Constitution of the United
States, is a sacred part of the process. As you all sit before
us, I am sure there will be questions for the record that you
all will be asked to be completing. For now, until the Chairman
comes back, I have the gavel. I have the power. Let us have
some fun.
[Laughter.]
I will first turn my questioning toward Julien Neals and
ask him, in his 20 years of working with me, would he please go
over in detail my finer points as a leader?
[Laughter.]
Senator Booker. No. In all--in all seriousness, I would
like to direct the first question to Judge Quraishi. You have
dedicated the vast majority of your professional life to
serving your country. That says a lot. You worked in the JAG
Corps, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S.
Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, and now as a
U.S. magistrate judge. You had a lot of other lucrative
opportunities before you, and I was wondering if you could tell
us why you are so passionate about public service, and why you
believe these experiences have really prepared you for the role
as an Article III district court judge.
Judge Quraishi. Thank you, Senator Booker. As you may
recall, we refer in New Jersey to the folks that practice in
Federal court as our Federal family. That involves not only the
judges and the court staff, but it involves prosecutors,
Federal public defenders, civil practitioners in the Federal
Bar. I think, for me, in my career, I have felt a part of that
Federal family and being a member of that Federal family before
I even knew what it was. I think that stemmed early in my
career in the military. When I was honorably discharged and was
returning home to New Jersey after military service, I was
looking to find some civilian equivalent of what I had felt
when I was serving in the Army, being a part of something
larger than myself. That, to me, was public service in the
Federal Government with the Department of Homeland Security,
followed by the United States Attorney's Office, and even in
the private sector, supporting programs like the re-entry
court, and the Judicial Conference, and other programs for our
Federal court.
As far as my collective experience, I think it will be
useful as a district judge. I think having the experience of
being both a prosecutor and a defense lawyer, as a veteran, as
a--as a practitioner, a private lawyer, working at a law firm,
and currently sitting as a United States magistrate judge,
where I am--I am handling civil cases and some of the criminal
duties of a magistrate judge. I think, collectively, all of
that will benefit me if I was so fortunate to be confirmed as a
district judge.
Senator Booker. I am really--I am really grateful for that.
I cannot help but mark the significance of your faith. If you
are confirmed, as has been said multiple times already, you
will be the first Muslim to serve as an Article III Federal
judge. In my opinion, it goes without saying that this should
have happened a very long time ago. There were Muslim Americans
here at the founding of our country and have played a role in
everything from arts, business, invention, in so many areas of
American life, but not on the bench at the Federal level. I am
wondering, as we now see us break this extraordinary milestone,
I just wonder if you might tell us what you are thinking and
how it feels to be a trailblazer, a glass ceiling breaker, and
a history maker.
Judge Quraishi. Thank you, Senator. You know, I have
thought a little bit about that only because I do not identify
myself in any particular way through this nomination process,
but I have obviously read that I would be the first Muslim-
American Article III judge, if confirmed. Candidly, I would
prefer to have been the 100th or the 1000th, not the first, but
I understand that it comes with a lot of responsibility.
Senator, as you know, I was the first Asian American to sit on
the district court in our State--in our State's history on the
Federal court, and I understand what that means to the
community.
I can tell you that, if confirmed, I would--I would
approach this historical nomination the same way I approach
being the first Asian American on the New Jersey district
court, and that would be to put my head down, do the work that
is before me on the court to help my colleagues and the Article
III judges that are overwhelmed with a significant case load
and six vacancies, and to serve by example. I think you said it
better than I could, Senator, that if I am so fortunate to be
confirmed to be the first, the goal is for me not to be the
last, and so that is how I would approach it.
Senator Booker. I am grateful. I am in full recognition
that I have tumbled from the high height of being Chairman of
the Judiciary Committee back down to being the junior Senator
from New Jersey. My time has expired, even though I have some
more questions for Julien Neals, perhaps on a second round, if
the Chairman now would so allow it. I will yield to the senior
Senator from the State of Illinois and the Chairman of this
Committee.
Chair Durbin. [Presiding]. Thank you very much, Senator
Booker. I hurried back because I wanted to see if Mr. Neals had
a halo----
[Laughter.]
Chair Durbin [continuing]. After initial introduction by
Senator Booker. I was anxious to see. He looks like a perfectly
fine normal human being, and he has given you sanctified,
miraculous qualities. I thank you for being here.
It is such a refreshing experience here to have candidates
for lifetime appointments to the Federal judiciary who have
actually been in a courtroom. In the last 4 years, that was not
always the case. We had many nominees brought before us who may
have watched the first part of NCIS on television, but that was
as close as it ever came to courtroom experience. I do not have
to ask you, sir, in terms of 6,000 cases--was that the number
that you were involved in with the municipal court?
Judge Neals. Yes, Senator.
Chair Durbin. What kind of cases?
Judge Neals. Thank you, Senator, for the question. The
Newark municipal court was--is composed of 11 full-time judges
and a staff of 104, and hears approximately half a million
cases a year, and those range from disorderly persons offenses,
to landlord-tenant cases, to truancy cases, and other
regulatory code violation cases. Traffic is also a significant
portion of that as well. While I was sitting as chief, I would
cover the courts for other judges in their absence, so I had
the opportunity to sit on all those different types of cases
during my tenure.
Chair Durbin. That is real courtroom experience. There is
no question about that. Mr. Quraishi, you, too, have had quite
a background in the law in the--on the military side and civil,
criminal side as well. I am going to follow-up with a question,
which I am almost embarrassed to ask, but only because I have
heard it from other Members of this Committee from time to
time, and it is likely to come up at some point. What do you
know about Sharia Law?
Judge Quraishi. I do not know anything about that,
Chairman. If the question, too, is whether I would apply the
laws of the United States in the State of New Jersey, I can
tell you in 21 years of practicing law as a Federal prosecutor,
as a military officer in the United States Army, as a defense
attorney and partner at a prestigious law firm in New Jersey,
and a United States magistrate judge, I have never even been
asked the question. That being said, I know probably less about
it than you do, and I do not know anything about it.
Chair Durbin. Good. Not good, but certainly we are
anticipating criticism which has no basis in fact because of
things we have heard. Your answer is solid. Ms. Rodriguez,
gosh, what a journey your family has taken over the years. It
is amazing to hear the story. I do not know if I am repeating
something that was raised earlier about your going out and
knocking on doors, trying to find a lawyer. Have you told that
story here before the Committee?
Ms. Rodriguez. I have not, Senator.
Chair Durbin. Would you please?
Ms. Rodriguez. Certainly. I was a senior in high school
living in Macomb, Illinois at the time, and had an idea that I
might want to be a lawyer one day, but I did not know any
lawyers, and I did not really know what all that involved. In
my rather naive 17-year-old way, I put on my best suit, and I
started going from door to door to lawyers' offices in our town
of Macomb, and most did not see me. Many people seemed very
surprised that this young woman would show up at their
doorsteps, and most explained that you had to at least have had
1 year of law school before you could get a job in a lawyer's
office.
I found one person. His name was John Bisbee. He was a
civil rights lawyer and a criminal defense lawyer, and he said
to me, you want to do what? I said, well, I thought I should
work in a law office to understand what lawyers do, and he
hired me. I spent the summer serving subpoenas, helping to
create a brief bank, and helping him in the ways that a young
person could do in his law office, and that really was the
start that I got.
Chair Durbin. Is he still around?
Ms. Rodriguez. Unfortunately, he has passed away. I did try
to find him.
Chair Durbin. That is a great story.
Ms. Rodriguez. Yes.
Chair Durbin. A great story about you and about him, and I
am glad it happened in Illinois. It makes me feel good about
it. It has been a long time since I have been in a Federal
courtroom as a lawyer, practicing lawyer, and I will tell you
that the temperament of the judge had as much to do with my
experience in that courtroom as any law or facts that I brought
before them. Do you want to say a word about temperament of a
judge before people who come searching for justice, Ms.
Rodriguez?
Ms. Rodriguez. Yes, thank you for that question, Senator.
I, too, share the belief that the temperament of the judge is
very important. It certainly has shaped my experience in the
many courtrooms that I have been in, but, even more
importantly, it shaped the experience of the people who appear
before those judges seeking justice. Fundamentally, that is
what all of our jobs are when we enter into a Federal
courtroom, or any courtroom for that matter.
It is critical that the judge listen intently and provide
every person who appears before him or her with a fair
opportunity to be heard. I believe we heard the nominees for
the circuit court talked about the importance of listening and
hearing what parties have to present, and them having the
experience of been being heard. I agree with that
wholeheartedly, and that would be my goal should I be honored
with a confirmation for this position.
Chair Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Quraishi, what is your
experience?
Judge Quraishi. Thank you, Chairman Durbin. I can tell you,
and I do not know if this is a popular answer, but I like
lawyers. I was a practicing lawyer for most of my career. Many
of my friends, members of the Bar, mentors that I have looked
up to in my career before serving on the bench, are all folks
that appear in our district court in New Jersey. For me, it is
seeing a reflection of myself when somebody walks into the
courtroom to appear before me as a magistrate judge. I think
they are me. I would hope that I would bring that same
thoughtfulness and respect and mutual respect, that I hope to--
that I brought as United States magistrate judge. I hope to
bring that, if I was fortunate to be confirmed as a United
States district judge, Chairman.
Chair Durbin. The sanctified Mr. Neals.
[Laughter.]
Judge Neals. Thank you, Senator. I have to say that in my
time as practice, I had a very deep understanding and
appreciation for judicial temperament, just in terms of being
able to get your case heard and get your case processed. My
time as chief judge, however, with Newark municipal court gave
me a whole different appreciation of the importance of judicial
temperament. For most people, their experience in court is a
very intimidating one, and it became very clear to me that,
especially from the litigant's perspective, it is very
important that they feel that their case is going to be heard,
they are going to have the opportunity to tell their story,
they are going to understand the proceedings, and they are
going to understand the result, and the judge is the one who
sets that tone. I think it is just important to have a calm
demeanor, open mindedness, and you show your appreciation for
the fact that this is such an important event in most people's
lives. I also think that that temperament has to also be
reflected in how you deal with the attorneys, with your court
staff, and the public in general.
Chair Durbin. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Senator Booker. Chairman, I appreciate you allowing me. May
I--may I continue for a few moments?
Chair Durbin. Please.
Senator Booker. Thank you, sir. This is--everything you say
here is for the record and under oath, and I just imagine, as
systems get better digitized, your testimony here could be
looked at by future generations. I would imagine that perhaps
one day somebody from your lineage will look back to listen to
what you had to say today. Mr. Quraishi, your father died of
COVID recently. I remember how I felt when I came to this
institution days after my dad had died to become a United
States Senator. I was wondering, for the record and for the
future, could you just tell us about your dad's influence on
you, and how that influence helped to make you--would help to
make you a better judge?
Judge Quraishi. Sure, Senator. It is a difficult question,
and I have been prepared for many questions today, but not this
one. My father and I were very close. He was a significant
influence in my life. You know, I remember speaking to a room
of maybe 400 lawyers at my investiture ceremony almost 2 years
ago and told them that in a room full of Federal judges and the
best practitioners in the State, my first advisor if I ever
needed anything would be my father, and that was true.
He grew to be a close friend and also a counselor to me,
and, candidly, he was my first influence in how I even went to
law school. You know, like some or many Pakistani fathers, I
think my father early on, I thought, that I would go to medical
school. It was not in the cards for me. I was not into science.
I was not into medicine. I remember when I was considering a
career in law enforcement, it was my father who first suggested
why don't you consider law school, you know, get your degree,
your juris doctorate, and after you are done, you can consider,
you know, what you want to do next. If it is a career in law
enforcement, that will not have escaped you because you went to
school for another 3 years. It was my father's initial advice,
along with my mother, that supported me going to law school.
As far as who I am today, I will tell you, frankly,
Senator, if I am half the man my father was before he passed
away, I will have been a success in my life. His loss was
tragic to my family, to my mother. What I hope to do and what I
strive to do for my children, who were very fond of their
grandfather as well, is do the best I can, treat everybody with
respect, be kind to others, and hope that he will be proud of
the man that I am, which he was before he passed away, and
that--the man that I will continue to be.
Senator Booker. I am grateful for that. Just one more
question for each of the nominees, and then this experience, I
hope will be coming to a conclusion. Ms. Rodriguez, I am sorry,
I did not plan to ask this question, but you piqued my
curiosity. Again, with the same sort of caveat that you are
speaking to the future, behind you is an extraordinary woman
that you said has an incredible story. Could you tell us a
little bit more about your mother and her influence on you in
being here today?
Ms. Rodriguez. Thank you for that question, Senator. It was
my--it is the generation of women in my family, starting with
my grandmother, Mary Takahashi. Her Japanese name is Yoneko. My
daughter is named after her, Nya Yoneko. They had a business.
They had a life in California. When the internment order came,
they were ordered to gather their belongings into what they
could carry in suitcases, and they did not know where they were
going. My mother was very young and her brother as well.
I think of the fact of our families, how much we love our
children and how we try to protect them, and what it would be
like to be told all of a sudden that you were going to leave
your home and carry only what you could carry with you for your
children. They were put on a train to Wyoming, and that is
where they remained for a number of years. What is interesting
to me is that my family never really talked about the
internment and the hardships they endured, which there were
many. What they talked about was the friends they made, the
people they knew, and the opportunities that now this country
has given. After the internment, my grandmother had heard that
there was still discrimination against the Japanese in
California, but she had heard that the Governor in Colorado was
welcoming, and so they moved the family to Colorado, in Denver,
and that has been the beginning of the legacy there.
My parents met in Gunnison, Colorado, and my father hails
as well, and I appreciate just a moment to also mention my
father who passed away just a few years ago. He did grow up in
a boxcar in what he calls the South Side of Chicago, although I
think he thinks that that is a little elevated for where he
actually was. He grew up without running water or electricity,
but both my parents made their way to school, and that is
really what has given them their start and what has given me my
start, and so I am eternally grateful for that. It means that
now it is my opportunity to once again return to public service
and give back.
Senator Booker. I am very grateful for that. What
extraordinary American stories, both of these last two
witnesses who spoke, have, and it is just a testimony to what I
think so many of us love about our country, that we are this
Nation of the highest ideals of humanity that bring together
all of humanity in this diverse tapestry that makes us all
better from our whole.
I want to just end with Julien Neals, and I will say to my
senior colleague that any sanctification that I am doing, trust
me, it was earned through some of those difficult years of my
life, trying to govern a city in a global recession. I had
these moments, though, that were--I cherished. When I first
made Julien Neals my chief judge, that same family you see
behind there would gather together with incredible pride. I
then made him my corporation counsel, and I saw the same
gathering of family. Then he became the leader of the city,
really the person that did the day-to-day work trying to get
our city out of a deep ditch, and managed to do it in a way
that not only got us to fixed fiscal strength, but every--the
biggest parks expansion in a century in our city, brought
supermarkets, our first hotels in decades, our first office
towers in generations, doubled the production of affordable
housing.
This man found ways to make a way out of no way and take a
city that many people wanted to cast aside, look down upon. He
made us stand up with pride. There is nothing like the pride of
his family, and I hope you get a chance, Mr. Chairman, to walk
over there because his father is one of the more dapper men
that I have met and reflects the dignity that his son has, and
his mom is such an extraordinary woman that beams light.
I just want to end by saying, Julien, we have gone through
this a lot. Never before on a national stage, at a Federal
level. I would just want to tell you that I know you are the
man that you are because of the parents that you had, and would
you just please say for the record and for eternity some words
about them? Then I am done, Mr. Chairman.
Judge Neals. Thank you, Senator. The influence that my
parents have had is immeasurable. My father was born in 1929 in
Florida, and imagining the experiences that he has gone through
to have matriculated here, to have eventually become an
attorney, and eventually become a judge is just remarkable. My
mother, the pride that she has had in being a Newarker, and her
words that would resound of how important it was for her that
her children would have that same experience, that they would
have a rooting and a relationship with this substance of that
cultural experience, and what that the city fought to overcome.
Honestly, when it was my distinct honor to serve with you
in Newark, it was hearing words of what your vision was for
Newark that resounded against what my mother had told me, and I
knew at that point that public service was the right direction
for me. With both of them being retired public servants, I
realized the value of giving back, and I realized the
sacrifices that they have made and the life pursuits that they
have done in raising three children in what often were many
difficult times, putting them through private school and
supporting them even to this day.
I really appreciate the opportunity, Senator, to have given
that recognition to my parents and just the experience and the
support that they have given me. I thank you as well for this
opportunity.
Senator Booker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Durbin. Thank you very much. I have come to know
Senator Booker in his Senate career, and I would say, Mr.
Neals, that if you could cover him with glory, you are truly a
talented man and destined for great things.
[Laughter.]
I hope that--I believe that will include the Federal bench.
I thank you for being here and especially for your family
continuing to back you up. Mr. Quraishi, the story you told
about your father was touching, and I want to thank you as well
for being a person to make history in America. That is saying
something, and it is something I am sure he would be very proud
of. Ms. Rodriguez, I am glad you stopped in Macomb, Illinois
for some inspiration in part of your life's journey, and what a
remarkable story on your family as well.
Before I adjourn today's hearings, I want to enter a number
of letters in the record and a few logistical notes. We have
received letters of support: the letter I referenced in my
opening statement from Judge Thomas Griffith in support of
Judge Jackson; a letter in support of Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi from
134 lawyers practicing in the Northern District of Illinois,
including four former U.S. attorneys; another letter supporting
Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi from 90 attorneys in the Chicago area who
worked with the nominee and served as opposing counsel; and
many, many, many letters in support of our exceptional district
court nominees. I will enter all these letters into the record,
as Senator Booker said, for future generations or anyone who
cares to see.
Questions for the record will be due to the nominees by 5
p.m. on Wednesday, May 5th. The record will likewise remain
open until that time to submit letters and similar materials.
Chair Durbin. With that, the hearing is adjourned. Thank
you.
[Whereupon, at 1:53 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
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