Revealed: Ketanji Jackson’s ‘soft spot’ for drug dealers, pedophiles

“Justice demands this result.” That’s what Ketanji Brown Jackson said in 2011 after the U.S. Sentencing Commission knocked as much as three years off the prison terms of crack-cocaine convicts. As vice chair of the commission, Jackson believed the nation’s drug laws were overly harsh and especially “unfair” to blacks.

A month earlier, Jackson had shrugged off Justice Department warnings that the decision — which made more than 12,000 federal crack inmates eligible for early release — could flood the streets with dangerous criminals who would likely reoffend.

“[B]y keeping them in longer, it doesn’t seem to make a difference with regard to whether or not they recidivate,” Jackson reasoned in a June 2011 commission hearing in Washington, according to transcripts reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.

Then-U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose objected: “It does protect the safety of the public, though, when they’re not present to recidivate.”

Unpersuaded, Jackson countered: “But the amount of time in jail doesn’t affect that because there’s no difference. If we keep them in jail for the extra 36 months, or whatever, they’re going to recidivate at the same rate as if we released them early. So I don’t see how public protection is being affected one way or the other in that scenario.”

“Because during the three years they are in prison, they are not out committing new crimes — that’s the difference,” Rose replied, adding that the department had “public safety concerns” over cutting prison terms for so many felons at once. – READ MORE