Is Drug Trafficking A Victimless Crime?
Washington, D.C. – Having an “empathetic style on the bench” is not the ringing endorsement Senate Democrats might think it is. In the case of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, that means having more empathy for drug traffickers than for their victims.
During questioning yesterday, Senator Tom Cotton asked Judge Jackson whether or not she spoke to the victims of a certain “fentanyl kingpin” prior to reducing his sentence, Judge Jackson declared that she had not because, “There were no victims.”
Are the lives lost to drug overdoses not victims of drug trafficking? Judge Jackson’s “empathetic style” led her to defend a convicted drug trafficker rather than the thousands of drug overdose victims. According to the most recent data, 101,035 Americans died from drug overdoses from October 2020 to October 2021:
- In Arizona, 2,714 people fell victim to a drug overdose.
- In Nevada, 1,036 people fell victim to a drug overdose.
- In Colorado, 1,864 people fell victim to a drug overdose.
- In Georgia, 2,224 people fell victim to a drug overdose.
- In New Hampshire, 363 people fell victim to a drug overdose.
Do vulnerable Senate Democrats Mark Kelly, Maggie Hassan, Catherine Cortez Masto, Raphael Warnock, and Michael Bennet agree with Judge Jackson? Is drug trafficking a victimless crime?
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