Why One Judge on Obama’s Supreme Court Short List Could Have Trouble From the Left and Right

One of the judges on President Barack Obama’s short list for the Supreme Court could draw fire from both the right and the left, having defended a Guantanamo detainee in a high profile case and currently belonging on the board of a church that supports traditional marriage.

U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the District of Columbia was a co-counsel in the case of Al Odah v. the United States, which was consolidated with the case of Boumediene v. Bush before the Supreme Court in 2008. The high court ruled in the case that Guantanamo Bay prisoners had to be given the opportunity to challenge the grounds of their detention in civilian courts.

Republicans opposed the 5-4 ruling. If Jackson is nominated, the case and her arguments are sure to be scrutinized.

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“She doesn’t have a very long record. She has been on the bench just three years as a district court judge, not as an appellate court judge, which is something the American Bar Association looks at,” Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel Carrie Severino told TheBlaze. “She’s on the shortlist because she has been an Obama loyalist. She was a poll watcher in the 2008 election, and she did represent a high-risk Gitmo detainee.”

Where Jackson could upset the left is her membership on the advisory board of the Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Maryland, in 2010 and 2011. The school is affiliated with the Montrose Baptist Church, which takes conservative stances on marriage and on homosexuality on its website. Her membership on the school’s board was mentioned on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire in 2012 when she was nominated to the district court.

The school and church did not respond to inquiries from TheBlaze.

The “What We Believe” section of the church’s website gives a mostly traditional conservative Christian worldview on marriage, abortion and homosexuality, but one that is in stark contrast to the policies of Obama and most elected Democrats.

The church’s website states, “Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography.” It goes on to say, “Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.”

The church website also states, “We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.”

“I would commend her for being involved in her church, but it’s clear, if this were a potential conservative nominee with orthodox views, or who is an evangelical or practicing Catholic, the nominee would be villainized by the left,” Severino told TheBlaze. “They are holding their fire because ideologically, they think this nominee might be ideologically on their side.”