Yesterday, when discussing the historic Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Fox News, Ted Cruz went on a bizarre, lie-filled rant against public defenders saying that “public defenders often have a natural inclination in the direction of the criminal.” Cruz went on to say that the hearts of public defenders are “the murderers, with the criminals.”
In this grotesque Fox News interview, Cruz appeared to forget that every American is constitutionally guaranteed legal representation and innocent until proven guilty. Cruz went on this tirade because not only will Judge Jackson be the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, she will also be the first public defender.
It is clear that Judge Jackson is a brilliant legal mind with exceptional qualifications, so Republicans like Cruz are floundering and grasping at straws to make a case against her nomination.
“She came out of law school and she clerked for Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court, and she became a federal public defender,” said Ted Cruz. “And you and I have both known public defenders and there are public defenders – people go and do that because their heart is with criminal defendants. Their heart is with the murderers, with the criminals. And that’s who they’re rooting for. A lot of the same reason people go become a prosecutor – because they want to lock up bad guys – public defenders often have a natural inclination in the direction of the criminal. And I gotta say, that inclination was not just while she was a public defender, but she carried it onto the bench when she became a criminal judge.”
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Published: Apr 5, 2022