WASHINGTON: It’s not just Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson who is being scrutinised. Senators are also being watched at this milestone moment considering the first Black woman for the high court.

Some senators are overcome with joy, as Cory Booker of New Jersey described the swell of emotion he felt over the potential to confirm a judge who would help the court look more like America.

Others, led by Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, quiz the federal judge about her views on issues of race and crime, amplifying election year grievances and a backlash over changing culture.

Jackson appeared for a third day before the Senate Judiciary Committee for grueling confirmation hearings that are providing a vivid portrait of the promise, and enduring racial challenges, facing the country.

Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill, opened on Wednesday lamenting that his panel had become the testing ground for conspiracy theories and culture war theories.

Nevertheless, he declared, America is ready for the Supreme Court glass ceiling to finally shatter.

Here are some takeaways from Day Three of the weeklong confirmation hearings.

Jackson is the first federal public defender to be nominated to the Supreme Court, and she related her views about the importance of the work to ensure fair trials for all Americans.

Under questions from Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, she explained that prior to the court’s 1963 ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright, people who were accused of crimes but couldn’t afford lawyers were not guaranteed the right to legal representation.

The protections of the Sixth Amendment, the right to trial, includes the right to appointed counsel, so that everybody who is accused of criminal behavior now has the right to an attorney, she said. And thats very important.

Jackson’s efforts representing those accused of crimes, alongside the sentences she handed down as a federal judge, have provided a lengthy record of difficult cases for senators to review, in particular as Republicans have suggested she is soft on crime. Critics say she brings too much empathy to the cases.

Democrats counter that Jackson, who comes from a family with police officers, is backed by the Fraternal Order of Police, the large law enforcement organisation.

Jackson’s record is being scrutinised much the way the work of the first Black nominee to the court, Thurgood Marshall, the storied civil rights attorney, was probed for representing criminal defendants a half a century ago.

Jackson has presented herself a judge who relies on method, not judicial philosophy, to remain neutral as she works to stay in my lane as a judge rather than a policy-making legislator.

She expanded on that view Wednesday reminding senators that the Constitution gives Congress the power to make laws and gives the courts the judicial authority, the power to interpret the laws.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2022