The registered sex offender who was given three months in prison by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominated for the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden, is speaking out and seemingly thanking the judge for her lenient sentence in his case.
In 2013, Jackson sentenced then-19-year-old Wesley Hawkins to three months in prison, three months of home confinement, and six years of supervision after he was convicted of possessing child pornography where boys 8 to 12-years-old were depicted in sex acts.
Specifically, Hawkins was found with 17 videos and 16 images of child pornography.
Federal sentencing guidelines called for Hawkins to receive eight to ten years in prison, but prosecutors took into account his lack of criminal history and requested two years in prison. Hawkins’ defense team requested a single day in jail and five years of supervision.
Following his sentence, in 2019, Hawkins was ordered by Jackson to complete his supervised release at a halfway house, according to the Washington Post, because he had been searching “sexually arousing, non-pornographic material and images of males 13 to 16-years-old” and was highly likely to re-offend.
In an interview with the Post, Hawkins seemingly thanked Jackson for the lenient sentence and acknowledged that he received far less prison time than many other sex offenders convicted for child pornography possession:
Perhaps most surprising, Hawkins said, was that he found himself feeling sympathy for the judge he had once been angry with for sending him to prison. [Emphasis added]
“I wasn’t very happy that she gave me three months, though after reflection when I was in jail, I was hearing from other people who said it was their first time arrested and they got five years, six years. [Emphasis added]
“I feel that she chose to take into consideration the fact that I was just getting started [in life] and she knew this was going to hold me back for years to come regardless,” he said, “so she didn’t really want to add on to that.” [Emphasis added]
In other remarks to the Post, Hawkins seemingly confirmed reports that Jackson ordered him to finish his supervised release in a halfway house because he was considered a high risk to re-offend based on his computer searches.
At her confirmation hearing, Jackson was asked if she had regretted sentencing Hawkins to only three months in prison. Jackson did not say if she regrets the decision.
“What I regret is that in a 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 and I’ve tried to explain,” Jackson said.
On Friday, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Josh Hawley (R-MO), John Kennedy (R-LA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) authored a letter to Jackson, demanding she provide documents and additional information on the Hawkins case.
“Your lenient sentencing in the Hawkins case was the subject of significant interest in the Committee’s review of your judicial record,” the Senators wrote. “Our review of your nomination requires that the Committee fully understand the circumstances that informed your actions in this case.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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