A blazing row erupted in a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday over a Biden-nominated judge who put a 6’2″ transgender woman convicted of multiple child rapes in a women’s prison.
New York judge Sarah Netburn dismissed the Bureau of Prisons’ concern for female inmates’ safety and moved July Justine Shelby, born William McLain, to a women’s prison in August 2022.
Shelby, 60, had previously been convicted in two separate Indiana state cases of child molestation of a nine-year-old boy and rape of a 17-year-old girl, served 18 years in state prison, then violated parole and was sentenced to 15 years in state prison in 2017 for distributing child porn.
During Netburn’s confirmation hearing for a federal judge position on Wednesday, Republican senators grilled her on the case.
Senator Ted Cruz lambasted Netburn for being ‘willing to subjugate the rights of individuals to satisfy your political ideology,’ and Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana labeled her a ‘political activist’ – accusations which the judge denied.
The hearing devolved into a screaming match between senators when Cruz accused Netburn of contradicting herself, as freshman California Senator Laphonza Butler struggled to regain control of proceedings.
‘You took a 6’2″ serial child rapist with male genitalia, and he said “you know I’d like to be in a women’s prison” and your answer was “that sounds great to me,”‘ Cruz said in a fiery tirade.
‘Let me ask you something, the other women in that prison, do they have any rights? Do they have the right not to have a 6’2” who is a repeat, serial rapist put in as their cellmate?’
Netburn said that Shelby had ‘serious medical needs’ and ‘had engaged in no physical violence and no acts of sexual violence whatsoever’ after her first 18-year sentence.
Court documents show that Netburn dismissed the Bureau of Prison’s concerns over the danger Shelby posed as ‘overblown,’ in a report she filed on August 3, 2022 ordering the inmate be transferred to FMC Carswell, a female federal correctional facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
While still going by the name William McLain, Shelby pleaded guilty to raping nine and 17-year-old children in 1994.
When he was released 18 years later, he violated his parole by using the internet in his apartment, and was imprisoned again until 2015.
Court documents say that after being released at age 51, Shelby started hormone therapy to transition genders in August 2015.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz got testy Wednesday during a back-and-forth with a Biden-nominee
Shelby is currently serving his sentence at the women’s Federal Medical Center in Carswell, Texas
But Shelby was arrested again a year later after police discovered the rapist, now identifying as a woman, sent horrific, graphic child porn images to registered sex offender Beau Thornburgh, a boyfriend Shelby met during their 18-year stint in Indiana state prison.
Shelby pleaded guilty to child porn distribution and was sentenced by an Indianapolis federal court to 15 years, beginning in the New York medium security men’s prison Otisville FCI.
She launched legal attempts to get out of prison that were unrelated to her gender, including claiming that she didn’t get a proper legal defense. Those failed.
And when she claimed that she was being denied her constitutional rights by being housed with men, the Bureau of Prisons denied her claims, arguing that moving her to a women’s prison would be ‘traumatizing and possibly dangerous’ for the female inmates.
But in August 2022, Magistrate Judge Netburn overruled those concerns.
‘There are no signs that Petitioner is at risk of re-offending. The record is devoid of evidence of incidents of violence or assault during Petitioner’s incarceration,’ Netburn wrote.
She highlighted testimony from Shelby, who said: ‘People see a 6’2″ tattooed prisoner, I see a girl.’
The judge ruled that ‘a theoretical risk of sexual assault by Petitioner, without more, cannot support the BOP’s position,’ and ordered Shelby moved to a women’s prison.
The judicial nominee, Sarah Netburn, previously signed off on the transfer of a biologically male, child rapist to a women’s prison
A report by the group Keep Prisons Single Sex USA, using data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, said that there about 1,980 transgender offenders in the federal system, of which 1,295 are transgender men – half of whom were incarcerated for sex offenses.
Last year, the number of federal inmates identifying as transgender increased by 23 percent.
US SenateCaliforniaTed Cruz