Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall testified against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during a Thursday hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
While speaking in opposition to President Joe Biden’s high court nominee, Marshall touched on the importance of public safety, law and order, and the integrity of the criminal justice system.
Marshall began his opening remarks by slamming what he asserted to be the national left’s efforts to overlook violent crime and dismissed the progressive notion that the justice system is “broken” and “biased.”
“Upon the President’s announcement of Judge Jackson’s nomination, one supporter—the executive director of an influential progressive group that supports ‘defund[ing] the police’— pronounced: ‘We’re in a moment where there has been an active movement to reform our broken criminal-justice system… This appointment signals the administration’s commitment to pursuing criminal-justice reform at the highest level,’” quoted Marshall during the hearing.
Marshall noted that Biden’s nomination of Jackson could be a signal that the administration is embarking on an effort to “fundamentally redesign” the nation’s criminal justice system.
“Though I strongly disagree with his assessment that our criminal-justice system is ‘broken,’ I share his observation that this appointment may well be intended by this Administration to initiate a transformation of our criminal justice system—or, as Judge Jackson has described it, a ‘fundamental redesign’ of the system,” added the attorney general. “As we know from history, the United States Supreme Court can absolutely transform criminal justice—for better or for worse.”
Marshall continued, “The Senate must now do its due diligence to ensure that the ideology of the anti-incarceration and anti-police movement—views that the Biden administration has increasingly embraced—is never permitted to make its way onto the Supreme Court.”
Due to Jackson’s assessment that the criminal justice system needed to be reconstructed, Marshall stated his objection to her nomination to the Supreme Court.
“I have heard nothing this week to alleviate my fear that Judge Jackson believes that a ‘fundamental redesign’ is indeed needed in our criminal justice system and that she would be inclined to use her position on the Court to this end. For this reason, I respectfully oppose her nomination,” concluded Marshall.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
