Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is “well qualified” to serve on the US Supreme Court, reps from the American Bar Association reiterated Thursday, the final day of the DC appeals court judge’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Thursday’s hearing followed more than 20 hours of questioning of Jackson over the previous two days, and featured more than a dozen witnesses who spoke for and against her nomination. 

ABA official Ann Claire Williams told lawmakers that the association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary had interviewed 250 judges and lawyers who had worked directly with Jackson. According to Williams, the judge was described by those people as “brilliant,” “beyond reproach,” “first-rate,” “even-handed” and “impeccable.” 

“The question we kept asking ourselves was, how does one human being do much, so extraordinarily well?” Williams said.

Fellow ABA committee member Joseph Drayton maintained that the judges and lawyers they spoke with had no concern over the controverisal child pornography sentences Jackson has handed down from the federal bench – which many Republican senators attacked as overly leinent during their questioning. 

“None of them felt that she demonstrated bias in any way,” Drayton said.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) also appeared before the committee to argue in Jackson’s favor, saying her resume reads “like a storybook for the perfectly prepared jurist to sit on the nation’s highest court.”

Other witnesses included University of Virginia law professor Risa Goluboff, Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Human Rights, appellate attorney Richard Rosenthal, and Capt. Frederick Thomas, head of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

A third panel of witnesses argued against Jackson’s confirmation, and included Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, George Mason University assistant law professor Jennifer Mascott, pro-life activist Eleanor McCullen, Keisha Russell of First Liberty and Alessandra Serano from anti-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad. 

Echoing many Republican senators during the hearing, Russell suggested critical race theory could impact Jackson’s decision-making.

“Every lawyer and judge promises to defend and protect the US Constitution, but she cannot uphold this oath if she believes that the Constitution and the principles of America’s foundation are racist and inherently flawed,” Russell told the committee. “Neither can a judge remain impartial and administer justice independently if she holds a philosophy that correcting racism requires affording privileged classes less justice than oppressed classes.”

Earlier this week, Jackson vowed critical race theory, which she described as “academic,” would not have any impact on her potential decision making. 

“It doesn’t come up in my work as a judge. It’s never something that I’ve studied or relied on, and it wouldn’t be something that I would rely on if I was on the Supreme Court,” she said Tuesday.

Marshall again attacked Jackson over her sentencing decisions, saying that while the judge’s supporters cite her as a voice for the vulnerable, “we should be interested in exploring whether her zeal is equally fervent for another class of our most vulnerable — victims of violent crime.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took the opportunity to press the Alabama AG on the 2020 presidential election in light of former President Donald Trump revoking his endorsement of Rep. Mo Brooks a day earlier.

“Is Joseph R. Biden of Delaware the duly elected and lawfully serving president of the United States of America?” Whitehouse asked.

“He is the president of this country,” Marshall responded. 

“Is he the duly elected and lawfully serving president of the United States?” Whitehouse clarified. 

“He is the president of our country,” Marshall repeated. 

“Are you answering that [while] omitting the language ‘duly elected and lawfully serving’ purposefully?” Whitehouse asked. 

“I’m answering the question. He is the president of the United States.”

“And you have no view to whether he was duly elected or is lawfully serving,” Whitehouse pushed one more time. 

“I’m telling you he’s the president of the United States,” Marshall said again.

Jackson grew increasingly frustrated with Republican members on the committee Wednesday as they continued to press her over her sentences.

At one point, when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked if she regretted one of the penalties she handed down as being too lenient, Jackson shot back: “What I regret is that in the hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences.”

GOP members also clashed with Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) over access to pre-sentencing reports and probation officers’ sentencing recommendations from the cases in question.

Durbin rebuffed the Republicans’ request multiple times, calling it “a bridge too far for this committee” despite GOP members insisting the reports were vital to understanding Jackson’s thought process.

“We spent a lot of time here reflecting on these terrible crimes. Everyone has acknowledged how terrible they are, and how damaging they can be to the victims of crime story after story and I don’t question a single word that was spoken separately for the same victims,” Durbin said. “I would not want it weighing on my conscience that we are turning over these pre-sentence reports to this committee for the first time in history and that information out of this, because it was released, would somehow compromise or endanger any victim as a result of it.

“This information was not requested before, it’s never been requested by this committee,” he continued. “And I think we ought to think long and hard about whether or not we even consider going into pre-sentence reports.”

The committee will privately consider Jackson’s nomination Monday, with a vote on reporting her to the full Senate expected April 4. Democrats look to confirm the judge to the seat before the Senate breaks for the Easter recess in mid-April. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said he would like to bring her nomination to a vote “in short order.”

Jackson, who has previously been confirmed by the Senate to three federal posts, was nominated by President Biden last month to fill retiring Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat.

If confirmed, Jackson would be the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. She would join the court for its next term starting this October.