When a certain United States senator from Arkansas took the Senate floor to oppose the confirmation of District of Columbia Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, he criticized her having served as a public defender and lawyer in private practice representing, among others, several Guantanamo detainees accused of assisting Al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He negatively compared her service as a public defender and pro bono work on behalf of detainees to Justice Robert Jackson’s service as chief U.S. Nuremberg prosecutor—saying, “The last Judge Jackson left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg to prosecute the case against the Nazis. This Judge Jackson might have gone there to defend them.” Other senators mouthed the same loathsome narrative. This is not the first time a judicial nominee has been attacked because of the clients they have represented, and unfortunately it likely will not be the last.

Media reports rallied around Judge Brown Jackson by saying that she was “assigned” to undertake representation of these defendants, or that hers was a minor role, as though that erased or excused the insinuated stain of the representation. We suggest that aspect of the media “defense” largely missed the mark.

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