Ten years, two years, three months?
These diverse figures are at the center of a case in which Republicans are beating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in US v. Hawkins, which involves an 18-year-old convicted of distributing child pornography online.
Jackson sentenced the young man to three months in federal prison, even though federal sentencing rules recommended 10 years and prosecutors required two. Senators Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and others have repeatedly asked why?
Wesley Hawkins, six years later, has not given up on his morbid passion for children, according to records provided by the Washington Post.
In 2019, Jackson ordered Hawkins to serve the last six months of his six-year probationary period at the Halfway House after he was found to be seeking “sexually arousing, non-pornographic material.”
In 2012, Hawkins, then a high school student, began downloading pornographic material from the Internet and, according to his lawyer, “felt more confused and shocked than aroused.”
He later uploaded five pornographic videos of children from his computer to YouTube, which became known to the police. An undercover officer emailed him suggesting they had “similar interests”. Hawkins then emailed the policeman two videos and wrote that he was interested in men between the ages of 11 and 17.
Republicans are hitting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in US v. Hawkins, which involves an 18-year-old convicted of distributing child pornography online.
Senators Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and others have repeatedly questioned why she sentenced a child porn offender to just three months in prison.
He then uploaded 36 child pornography images and videos to his iCloud account when police ransacked his apartment. There were videos of 11 and 12 year olds having sex, videos of an 11 year old being raped by an adult male, videos of an 8 year old having sex, just to name a few. Police found 17 videos and 16 images of boys on his computer and phone, many of which were violent. The teen later pleaded guilty.
Although federal sentencing rules provide for 10 years, prosecutors only requested two, given Hawkins’ young age and lack of criminal record. Probation asked for a year and a half, according to documents given to senators and seen by the Washington Post.
Hawkins’ lawyer asked for much less: one day in jail, house arrest, and five years of supervision. They claimed he was just a gay boy from a deeply religious family who disapproved of homosexuality and was not attracted to small children.
Judges routinely hand down sentences below federal sentencing rules, even Trump appointees have done this on multiple occasions.
The White House claimed that in five of the seven cases, Jackson’s sentences were the same or more severe than the probation service had recommended. Probation services analyze the offender’s past and other factors to recommend tougher or lighter sentences. But in this case, Jackson delivered a much smaller sentence than even the probation service had asked for, explaining the ire of the Republicans.
In 2019, Jackson ordered Hawkins to serve the last six months of his six-year probationary period at the Halfway House after he was found to be seeking “sexually arousing, non-pornographic material.”
Hawley said the three-month prison term was tantamount to “a slap in the face” and repeatedly asked Jackson to say if she regretted it.
Hawkins’ attorney, Jonathan Jeffress, presented a psychologist’s assessment determining that Hawkins did not “demonstrate a sexual deviance” but rather that he was forced to watch child pornography as “a way for him to explore his curiosity about homosexual activity and communicate with his emotional peers.” . .’
Hawkins later wrote a letter to Judge Jackson expressing his hope that his crime “would not end my life before it had begun.”
“I have disappointed everyone in my family and everyone who has ever cared for me,” he wrote. “I hope that I can correct my mistakes and that my life does not end before it begins. I swear that I will never do this again and will not commit any crime in my life.”
Jackson sentenced Hawkins to three months in prison and six years of supervision.
Jackson said at the time that she felt the federal sentencing rules written by Congress were “out of date.”
Hawkins wrote a letter to Judge Jackson expressing his hope that his crime would not “end my life before it begins.”
“I do not think it is appropriate to necessarily increase the punishment based on your use of a computer, the number of images or underage victims. As required by the guidelines, as these circumstances exist in many, if not most, cases and do not point to a particularly heinous or egregious crime of child pornography.”
“I just have to tell you that it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. We’re talking about eight year olds and nine year olds, 11 year olds and 12 year olds,” Hawley told the judge of her remarks.
Jackson said she found the crimes both heinous and egregious, but “it is up to the judge to determine how to appropriately sentence the defendants.”
She noted that Hawkins was an image collector, “but they are not involved, the defendants say. They don’t focus on what’s really going on with the kids.
And Jackson was being hounded by some of the defense at the time. “You’ve only been doing this for a few months,” she told Hawkins. She told the teenager that she hoped he could learn from the experience and become a productive member of society, noting that he had just graduated from high school and was accepted into college.
She said the 18-year-old viewed images of people “a little younger” than himself, and the children involved in the images and videos are “basically your peers.”
“Most child pornography perpetrators are middle-aged adults, deviants who are attracted to photographs of vulnerable children… This case is different in that the children in the photographs and videos you collected were not much younger than you. It seems to be a situation in which you were fascinated by the sexual images that were, in fact, your peers.
These kids are eight! Hawley exclaimed at Wednesday’s hearing. “I don’t understand in what sense their peers are at my house: a nine-year-old, a seven-year-old and a 16-month-old. And I live in fear that they will be exposed, let alone use this material.”
Hawley said the three-month prison term was tantamount to “a slap in the face” and repeatedly asked Jackson to say if she regretted it.
“What I regret is that in the hearings on my qualifications to be a judge on the Supreme Court, we spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences,” Jackson retorted. When pressed further, she refused to say whether she regretted it or not.
She noted that in some cases she sentenced individuals involved in child pornography to 25 years in prison.
Of the 100 sentences handed down to Jackson in his eight years as a trial judge, Republicans focused on seven child pornography cases in which they found her sentences too lenient.
Hawley also asked her why she told the teen “there’s no reason to think you’re a pedophile” and apologized to him and his family for “the side effects of his conviction”.
Senator Tom Cotton on Thursday cited a 2019 court order from Jackson requiring Hawkins to be at the Halfway House for the final six months of his six-year supervision. The order, signed by Jackson, reiterated that his computer and other property was to be searched at any time, but added the condition that computer monitoring software be installed on his devices.
Jackson’s 2019 ruling request is sealed, which is typical of such probation service applications.
Cotton asked if Hawkins had committed additional sex crimes. “What was Wesley Hawkins doing in 2019, Judge?” Cotton asked.
“I don’t remember,” Jackson replied.
“You’ve been asked this probably more than any other case you’ve had,” he said. “Do you really expect this committee to believe that you don’t remember what happened in this Hawkins case?”
“Yes, Senator, I expect you to. This is my testimony,” the judge retorted.
“I don’t find that credible, Judge,” Cotton said.
The sealed request demonstrated that Hawkins did not commit any sexual offenses or violations of his terms, but “despite being in treatment for over five years”, Hawkins “continues to look for sexually arousing, non-pornographic material and images of men”. up to 16 years old.