Conservatives can oppose Ketanji Brown Jackson without lying

There are other distinctions, too. Drawing on his experience as a prosecutor, McCarthy recalls, “If the offender was a day short of his 18th birthday, we would drop the case; but if it was a day later, and we took the case, he’d be looking at a mandatory-minimum sentence of several years’ imprisonment.”

Should the same sentence be given to an 18-year-old male in possession of nude pictures texted to him by his 17-year-old girlfriend and a 50-year-old man in possession of graphic photos of a young child? Should the 18-year-old go to jail with hardened criminals for five years and be stigmatized for eternity? Common sense would seem to suggest these two scenarios belong in entirely different categories.

Ultimately, McCarthy writes, “the implication that [Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson] has a soft spot for ‘sex offenders’ who ‘prey on children’ because she argued against a severe mandatory-minimum prison sentence for the receipt and distribution of pornographic images is a smear.”