As discussed earlier in my Washington Post column, various names have been floating around town of possible nominees to replace the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. One of those names is Jane Kelly, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The conservative Judicial Crisis Network has not waited for the nomination and is already running an attack ad targeting Kelly. The ad is deeply troubling because it seeks to bar Kelly’s nomination because she zealously defended a child molester, Casey Frederiksen. The ad seeks to punish an attorney for performing her duty as a criminal defense counsel — suggesting that no attorney should defend those accused of such heinous crimes. While we celebrate the courage of presidents like John Adams (who represented the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre), there is a rising tide of intolerance for those who step forward to fulfill the guarantees of due process and the right to counsel under our Constitution. The attack ad is the judicial version of Willie Horton ad used against Michael Dukakis by President George H. W. Bush.
The ad campaign proclaims:
“This is Jane Kelly. President Obama may appoint her to the Supreme Court. As a lawyer she argued that her client, an admitted child molester, wasn’t a threat to society. That client was found with more than 1,000 files of child pornography and later convicted for murdering and molesting a 5-year-old girl from Iowa. Not a threat to society? Tell your senator, Jane Kelly doesn’t belong on the Supreme Court.”
It is an appalling attack in my view that ignores the right to counsel for all accused persons. There are innocent people who are accused of crimes and everyone deserves the right to argue their innocence with the representation of counsel. One of the obvious components in any defense to a case of this kind is that the accused is not a danger to society. Indeed, the argument of innocence for a defendant naturally involves an argument of no danger to society. That argument is obviously made by counsel but it is the jury and the court that decide the issue after listing to both the prosecutors and the defense counsel.
Jane Kelly was a law school classmate of President Obama who received her B.A. summa cum laude from Duke and then graduated from Harvard in 1991. She also studied pediatrics for one year in New Zealand under a Fulbright Scholarship. She clerked for Donald J. Porter, chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and then clerked for David R. Hansen, a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She then served as an assistant federal public defender in the Northern District of Iowa, in 1994 and served as the supervising attorney in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa office, from 1999 to 2013. She was put on the 8th Circuit in 2013 with a confirmation vote of 96-0.
Kelly’s opinions do not shed a great deal on her jurisprudential depth or vision. However, she obviously has a stellar background and would bring long needed litigation experience to the Court. Indeed, her work as a criminal defense lawyer would make her fairly unique among nominees and would add a valuable perspective on the Court. What is so troubling is the impact of campaigns like this one on young lawyers. Many become prosecutors because they feel that people will blame them for their clients. The federal bench is full for former prosecutors and the defense counsel often privately complain of a bias against criminal defendants.
Frederiksen was living with five-year-old Evelyn Miller and her mother when he abuse the child and then stabbed her to death in July 2005. When he was convicted, he was serving a 14-year sentence in federal prison for receiving and possessing child pornography.
It is impossible to believe in the rule of law without accepting core principles of the right to counsel and due process. This ad campaign seeks to demonize lawyers for simply defending accused persons. Even in this poisonous election cycle, such an attack is disgraceful and should be denounced by liberals and conservatives alike. There are certainly arguments that have been raised against consideration of any nominee and there are no doubt grounds to question particular nominees, including Kelly. However, performing her sworn duty to zealously defend a client is not one of those good-faith grounds. Ironically, Kelly would have been the first to step forward to represent any of the people behind this attack campaign at Judicial Crisis Network if they were accused of wrongdoing. It is incredibly sad that network cannot distinguish between a lawyer fulfilling her vital function in the criminal justice system and the criminal himself.
@Compdoc
Here is a link to a decent assessment of what has taken place while Obama was in office:
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/01/obamas-numbers-january-2016-update/
Some good. Some bad. Some iffy. Outside of the numbers, I think many bad things have occurred under Obama. His DOJ has been racially divisive, like politicizing the death of stupid, black thugs like Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and Freddie Gray. Hence, we now have the farce known as Black Lives Matter. And racial divisiveness has increased. But hey, Democrats always love them some race-baiting! they’re experts at it!
Meanwhile, his DOJ has been spectacularly Missing-In-Action on the Wall Street-type fraudsters. After the 1982 S&L crisis, Reagan and Bush I prosecuted over 1100 white collar crooks, and indicted well over 800 of them. Obama, meh. Maybe Bernie Madoff, but I contend that was outside the financial crisis, What is the result of that failure? Americans have lost nearly all respect for our government, and our institutions. We routinely consider America a “banana republic” where the guilty get away with everything if they are “connected.” Like Hillary, so far.
Obama has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to enter the country, and stay. This is nothing but an all out attempt to buy votes for the Democratic Party by stuffing the ballot box. If you don’t see it, you ain’t looking. Not to mention the effect millions of low skilled workers have on the job market, by driving down wages and taking jobs from Americans.
And some of the other numbers are iffy. Crime and murder rates down, and gun sales up. Hmmm. cause and effect, or unrelated. Who knows for sure? At any rate, if Hillary wins, and she lets a bunch of criminals loose into the black neighborhoods, who knows where the crime rate will go.
Some of the good he may have done (or was it the Republican Congress?) was achieved while the national debt doubled. I guess if I had a really high limit credit card with a 2% interest rate, and used it, things would look great in my house, too! New car, newer swimming pool, new clothes, new gadgets, a Gibson 335 guitar and a D’Angelico hanging on the wall, and maybe a Gretsch or two, and a tube amp, and jewelry, artwork, more books, partying every night. . .yeah things would look great on the outside, but inside that little thing called a “monthly” payment is steadily growing along with the debt. . . tick….tick….tick.
Oh, my white robe and pointy little hat have just finished washing! Need to go put them in the washer so they can dry in time for the cross burning tonight! Because I have to be in the KKK to question Obama, right?
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Knotheads on this list try to make her look evil for being a public defender, which is as honorable a thankless job as there is. When any one of you is before a presumptuous criminal-court judge, a cold sweat breaking on your forehead, and you find he or she is just a prosecutor in robes, you’ll swallow the pill you’ve made for yourselves by your comments here. Right to counsel is as fundamental as your right to criticize it.
I’ve never read any of Judge Kelly’s opinions, but her CV is as good as any.
And yet when people objected to Roberts because of his clients we were all told that lawyers shouldn’t be judged by their clients! Oh, that only applies to Republican picks to SCOTUS! I forgot.
Justice Holmes – I thought it was Hillary we were supposed to overlook her rapist client.
No damage has been done to America by our president. The truth is, America did great after the world’s economies crashed. President Obama has done a great job. Anyone can see what a good decent man he is, and we could not have had a better representative to show the world who we are. If you compare him to any Republican candidate, you can see what the hate and lies have done to that party.
But the racists have to close their eyes and say what’s expected of them, or they don’t get to wear their white pointy hats anymore. They’re the ones damaging the US. Who wants them running the country? That’s crazy.
It is certainly a freedom of speech issue. She has the right to speak for her client and this group has the right to speak against her.
A Harvard Yale dude is the chief yakker for the conservative think tank which put out this trash. Her name is Carrie Sevarinno. It is well known that she is angling for a job on the DC Court of Appeals when Trump gets elected. Here is her own description of self on the website for that tink tank:
Carrie Severino is chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network. In that capacity she has testified before Congress on assorted constitutional issues and briefed Senators on judicial nominations. Mrs. Severino has been extensively quoted in the media and regularly appeared on television, including MSNBC, FOX, CNN, C-SPAN and ABC’s This Week. She has written and spoken on a wide range of judicial issues, particularly the constitutional limits on government, the federal nomination process, and state judicial selection. Mrs. Severino regularly files briefs in high-profile Supreme Court cases. In the 2013 term those briefs included Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, arguing in favor of religious freedom; McCullen v. Coakley, the First Amendment challenge to Massachusetts’ abortion clinic-buffer zone law, and Schuette v. BAMN, defending states’ rights to engage in race-blind higher education admissions. She has also filed briefs in the Halbig and King cases challenging the Obama Administration’s implementation of Obamacare.
Until March 2010, Mrs. Severino was an Olin/Searle Fellow and a Dean’s Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center. She was previously a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, cum laude, of Duke University, and holds a Master’s degree in Linguistics from Michigan State University.
Conservatives and republicans demand strict adherence to the Constitution!!!! Unless they don’t like what the Constitution says…..I think you could sum up the conservative, republican Constitution in two words – More Guns!
If you look at the records of the eight Justices sitting on the Court, none have tried a criminal jury trlal case on behalf of a criminal defendant. One tried jury trial cases as a lawyer. The others were all Harvard and Yale, then clerks for some judge, then government employees.
The Supreme Court needs a trial attorney this time around. It needs someone who has represented humans accused of crimes and who have tried jury trial cases involving same. Not weeny, weeny bo beanies from Harvard and Yale who hale from New York or nearby.
Listen to oral arguments on C-Span television. Listen to all those New Yorky voices.
We need a new Justice from the midwest.
The attack by the folks on the blog here are as lame as the one by the Conservative ahole group.
If you want to reform pedophiles then do something to resolve the punishment issue. Corporal punishment. Take off the genitals in some fashion. Argue over the method like you do the death penalty. I suggest local anesthesia and a sharp knife on Sunday morning before Mass. Then show the result to the pedophile priest in the nearest Catholic Church. Different strokes for different folks. Conservative think tanks need to learn to think.
Since Obama is going to get a stonewall for his appointment this person from the 8th Circuit would be a good choice. All those who voted for her appointment to the 8th Circuit who now sit in the Senate can explain to the Conservative think tank why they said yes. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Judicial Committee, already gave this person high praise in the last appointment. Let us hear from old Chuck as to why he can not have a hearing this time around.
As to you on the blog who hate Obama. Be careful for what you wish for. Most of you probably want The Donald. If we get him then there will be a chorus in America. The Chorus will sing the song: Oh Canada! Folks will move. When folks travel they will deny that they are Americans. I do not care if he builds up that Wall. My relatives belonged to the German American Bund in the 1930s. Google that fellow bloggers. Heil Donald.
King Saul looked for sprit of Judge Samuel and finds the witch of Endor.
Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her.
And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.
Jonathan Tur
It’s not that the Judge actually defended him, as much as she VOUCHED for him, or was duped by him. We do not need her replacing Judge Scalia. We do not need anyone Obama would choose, either. He has done enough damage to America, already.
The ad is misleading, because it implies that Kelly was personally vouching for her perv client. In fact, she told the court that a PSYCHOLOGIST who examined the perv determined that although he liked to look at child porn, he wasn’t a danger to society. That was in 2005. Seven years later, the former client was indicted for raping and murdering a 5-year old girl. Kelly had nothing to do with that case. He is serving two life sentences.
There is no group on earth more vindictive and retaliatory than aggrieved homosexuals. No law firm wants to be on the receiving end of their wrath.
@Richard
Yeah, but. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/us/the-case-against-gay-marriage-top-law-firms-wont-touch-it.html?_r=0
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The case before the Supreme Court dealing with gay marriage did not involve the government prosecuted an individual and trying to, effectively, take his life. There have been, and are, plenty of well qualified attorneys prepared to represent those being prosecuted in some way for being against gay marriage.
@RalphAdamo
You sound like you have read Kindergarden of Evil by Evan Sayet. I think that you are right that it would be nuts to appoint anybody Obama nominates because I don’t see him doing anything without a sure grip on the politics of it.
As far as Kelly, her defense of the child murderer may be excusable, but I think it worthwhile to note that it was very difficult to find a high quality lawyer or law firm to argue against gay marriage before SCOTUS. Kind of telling when people find it easier to defend murdering pedophiles than those opposed to gay marriage.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Hah! Turley shows his true colours with his support for the enablers of child molesters, perverts, and murderers. This isn’t surprising, though, for those who now that Turley went out of his way to support Islamic Jihad founder and convicted terrorist, Sami Al-Arian, by purportedly doing pro bono work on his behalf. Even if Turley did the work pro bono, it would be making a sham of the tradition of pro bono, which is supposed to benefit society–not Islamic terrorists and terrorist enablers. Of course Jane Kelly would be an abomination on the SCOTUS. ANYONE that Obama recommends is going to be that. It cannot be otherwise. Obama is only capable of making Obama-like decisions, which means decisions that attack and destroy America. Since Turley is a leftist of the same colours as Obama, it’s hardly surprising that they should think identically.
Hugh Beaumont: it does blame her for acting as an attorney representing a client in the case. An attorney does not argue that a jury or judge should accept a particular view because the attorney believes it to be true. The attorney argues that certain conclusions should be drawn from the evidence presented, as she did here. Doing otherwise would have been a violation of her duty to her client.
The Supreme Court could use some high quality attorneys who have defended difficult cases (like this one) in court.The absence of high quality attorneys on the Court who have significant experience working “in the trenches” is a major problem.
She said a child molester and a murderer was no threat to society. That is reckless endangerment. I don’t think anyone would try to disqualify here merely for taking the case, as the video above confirms.