Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) grilled Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, focusing a number of his questions on her record with regard to child pornography cases.
Graham argued that Jackson — who has been accused of using her own discretion to impose sentences that were less severe than established guidelines and even prosecutorial recommendations — was not using every tool at her disposal to deter those who trafficked in child pornography.
“I have no doubt that you find child pornography disgusting as the rest of America,” Graham began. “You are a mother, you seem to be a very nice person. Are you aware of how many images are out there on the internet involving children and sexually compromising situations?”
“Senator, I am not aware of the numbers but I have seen the images in my role as a judge,” Jackson replied.
“Let me tell you the numbers. In 2021 the center for missing and exploited children received 29.3 million reports of apparent child sexual exploitation containing 85 million images, videos, and other files,” Graham continued, noting that those numbers were up in recent years. “So there is an epidemic of this on the internet, that if you go out on the internet, there are millions of pictures of kids being abused.”
Graham then asked Jackson if she considered whether or not a crime was committed using a computer was a factor when she determined sentences for those convicted of possessing or distributing child pornography.
“At the time that the guidelines were drafted, it was an aggravating factor, a substantial aggravating factor, to use a computer in order to distribute and disseminate the images because the ordinary crime was not committed by computer,” Jackson said, noting that prior to widespread availability of the internet, those who trafficked in child pornography did so by sending individual photos through the mail.
“Would you now agree with me that computers are sort of the venue of choice for child pornography people?” Graham asked, and when Jackson affirmed, he moved on to the next question: “If you believe as I do the computer has created a bigger demand, there are more photos out there because of the internet, more websites exposing this garbage, wouldn’t you want to deter people from going down that road?”
“Senator, this crime is among the most difficult —” Jackson pushed back.
“Would you want to deter people from going down the road abusing the computer that allows these people to have access to millions of photos because of the technology? I want those people deterred,” Graham said, going on to say that he believed sentences should be enhanced for people who were convicted of using computers to distribute child pornography.
“The computer and the internet is feeding the beast,” he continued, asking whether Jackson also believed that the number of images a person had should not be considered as a sentence enhancement.
Jackson pushed back, saying that in every case she had imposed “substantial supervision” for those who had been convicted.
“You think it is a bigger deterrent to take somebody who is on a computer looking at sexual images of children in the most disgusting way is to supervise their computer habits versus putting them in jail?” Graham asked.
“No, I didn’t say versus,” Jackson objected.
“That’s what you said,” Graham insisted. “I think the best way to deter people from getting on a computer and viewing thousands and hundreds and over time maybe millions, the population as a whole, of children being exploited and abused every time somebody clicks on is to put their a** in jail, not supervise their computer usage.”
“Senator, I wasn’t talking about versus,” Jackson repeated.
“You just said you thought it was a deterrent to supervise them. I don’t think it is a deterrent. I think a deterrent is putting them in jail,” Graham replied.