Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing: Day 4

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson's historic confirmation hearings wrapped today with a round of testimonies from outside witnesses.

Thursday's events capped a busy week on Capitol Hill that included opening statements on Monday and two days of questioning Tuesday and Wednesday. Jackson spent some 22 hours being grilled by Senate Judiciary Committee members.

Now that the public hearings have ended, the next phase of her confirmation process begins. After a committee meeting next Monday where Republicans will be allowed to hold her vote over for a week, the committee is slated to vote on her nomination April 4.

Then there will be a final Senate floor vote which is yet to be scheduled. Senate Democratic leaders have said they hope to have a vote confirming Jackson before their Easter recess.

Democrats can confirm Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court without Republican support if every member of their caucus votes in favor, which appears on track to happen, and Vice President Kamala Harris breaks a tie. It is not yet clear if Jackson will win any Republican votes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon that he would not be voting in favor of Jackson's nomination.

When the Senate voted to confirm Jackson last year to fill a vacancy on a powerful DC-based appellate court, three Republican senators voted with Democrats in favor: Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. But Graham told CNN it's "fair to say" he sees red flags with her nomination in an interview after his first round of questioning.

Catch up on key moments from this week's hearings by:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell brushed off criticism about the behavior of some Republicans during the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings.

McConnell suggested that the GOP’s treatment of Jackson doesn’t compare to how Democrats treated Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate vetting process. Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, a charge he forcefully denied.

The Kentucky Republican added: "The American people know it is not asking too much to ask a federal judge legal questions about her record. I just wish the Senate had gotten more answers." 

GOP Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah say they won’t boycott Senate Judiciary vote on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination, meaning the committee will have a quorum to hold a vote on Monday, April 4.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the committee, said he doesn’t support a boycott either.

Tillis added he was satisfied with requests for information on Jackson’s child porn case sentencing decisions — even as other conservatives have pushed for more.

Pressed by Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall refused to say that President Biden was a "duly elected" President. Marshall would only say that Biden was the President.

The fundraising arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, which was led by Marshall at the time, sent robocalls before the January 6 assault on the Capitol encouraging that protestors march to the Capitol. Whitehouse on Thursday asked Marshall several questions about the robocalls. Marshall said he was not present in DC that day, but that he couldn't speak to whether staff of RAGA or its fundraising group Rule of Law Defense Fund were in DC.

"We've denounced lawlessness — not only as it related to what took place in January 6, but also the lawlessness that continues to go on across our country with violent crime," Marshall said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer indicated on Thursday he wants to move swiftly to hold a Senate floor vote on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination the Supreme Court, the latest sign Democrats are confident they will be able to confirm President Biden’s nominee.

Schumer said in a floor speech that once the Senate Judiciary Committee advances the nomination, “I will move to have her nomination come to the floor in short order. The Senate is on track to have Judge Jackson confirmed as Justice Jackson by the end of this work period.”

The Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the nomination on April 4.

Schumer said that “after three marathon days of speeches and questions and answers, Judge Jackson's public testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee has concluded.” He went on to say, “there's not a shred of doubt in my mind she merits confirmation to the US Supreme Court.”

The panel outside witnesses testifying about Jackson made opening statements that emphasized the dueling points that Democrats and Republicans have sought to present about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

The Democratic witnesses leaned into the historical significance of Jackson’s ascent to the Supreme Court, while highlighting the particular characteristics the judge's supporters say make her qualified for the post. 

"We have waited far too long for this day, but we are nonetheless overjoyed that it has finally arrived. Judge Jackson's presence on the court will matter tremendously,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. 

Even as she cheered the prospect of a Jackson confirmation that “glass ceiling that many Americans... believe that they would never live to see it broken,” Rep. Joyce Beatty urged the Senate to remember "that Judge Jackson's confirmation vote must not be isolated to her gender or to her race.” 

Attorney Richard Rosenthal, who has known Jackson since childhood said she has been one of the "kindest, warmest, most humble and down to earth people I have ever met.” 

Risa Goluboff – the dean of University of Virginia Law School who is testifying in her personal capacity — connected Jackson’s qualities to those of the justice she clerked for and may now well replace. 

As Republicans have zeroed in on Jackson’s record on crime, Captain Frederick Thomas, the national president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, discussed the group’s endorsement of her nomination.  

One of the witnesses, Eleanor McCullen, spoke at length about her anti-abortion activism outside of clinics and how she was "deeply saddened” by an amicus brief that Jackson, as a private attorney, filed in support of a clinic buffer zone law that McCullen challenged in court. 

First Liberty Institute associate counsel Keisha Russell discussed at length “critical race theory,” an academic theory that Republicans have claimed, without evidence, influences Jackson’s jurisprudence. Alessandra Serano, an anti-human trafficking advocate at Operation Underground Railroad, decried the trend of judges issuing sentences in child pornography below the advisory guidelines – an aspect of Jackson’s record that some Republicans have critiqued. (Jackson is in the mainstream of judges in how she handles these cases, and Serano’s opening testimony did not cite anything specific in Jackson’s record that suggested she was an outlier.)  

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall stressed the tough on crime messaging, telling the committee that, “The Senate must now do its due diligence to ensure that the ideology of the anti-incarceration and anti-police movement, views the Biden administration seemingly has increasingly embraced, is never permitted to make its way onto our Supreme Court.” 

Administrative law professor Jennifer Mascott warned that Jackson “may have a different view than traditionally applied methods of originalism,” the philosophy favored by some Republican appointed judges. 

Across the street from the Capitol, the Supreme Court issued a significant ruling saying that a Texas death row inmate can have his spiritual adviser "lay hands" on him and pray aloud.

In an 8-1 ruling, the ruling establishes new guidelines that will govern similar requests in other prisons across the country.

The court last September had blocked execution of John Henry Ramirez while the justices considered his requests concerning his pastor. The current policy in Texas is to allow a pastor in the chamber, but the pastor cannot speak up or physically touch the inmate.

Ramirez was convicted of robbing and murdering Pablo Castro in 2004, stabbing him 29 times in a convenience store parking lot. He also robbed a second victim at knifepoint and fled to Mexico, evading arrest for three and a half years, according to the Texas attorney general's office.

The ruling does not change Ramirez's death sentence.

Read more about the ruling from CNN's Ariane de Vogue and Devan Cole here.

Today's hearing features outside witnesses from the American Bar Association, who will discuss the group's well-qualified rating of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as outside witnesses for and against her nomination.

Read the prepared testimony from each witness below:

Witnesses from the American Bar Association

Witnesses called by Democrats

Witnesses to be called by Republicans

Senate Democrats continue to project confidence that they will be able to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court as confirmation hearings for President Biden’s nominee are in their final day Thursday. 

That’s largely because Senate Democrats have the votes to confirm her, as long as every member of their caucus remains united and Vice President Kamala Harris steps in to break a tie vote. 

So far, no Democrats have publicly signaled they would vote against the nominee, even as Republicans have worked this week to unleash potentially politically damaging attacks during the confirmation hearings. 

On Monday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democratic swing vote, seemed unfazed by allegations from Republicans that Jackson is soft on crime that Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley raised in how Jackson sentenced in a series of child pornography cases. Asked about Hawley’s allegation that she is soft on crime, Manchin asked reporters, “It’s Hawley right?” Reporters responded, yes. “Take that for what it’s worth,” Manchin said. 

For now, one big question is whether any Republicans will vote for Jackson. 

Collins and Murkowski are not on the Senate Judiciary Committee so they have not had a chance to question the nominee during the hearings. 

But Graham is a member of the panel. The South Carolina Republican has directed fierce, and highly critical, lines of questioning toward the nominee during confirmation hearings this week as he appears to be signaling he will not support her nomination. 

Graham told CNN, it's "fair to say" he sees red flags with her nomination after his first round of questioning the nominee, saying that her answers on defending Guantanamo Bay detainees "just doesn't make sense to me."