The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday rejected the nomination of a progressive judge who approved the transfer of a 6’2″ transgender-identifying male child rapist to a women’s prison.
Nominated by the Biden administration to join the federal bench for the Southern District of New York, Sarah Netburn allowed male sex offender July Justine Shelby to be sent to FMC Carswell, a female federal correctional facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Her order overturned the Bureau of Prisons’ rejection of his request for female housing.
Senator Ted Cruz, whose May interrogation of Netburn at a hearing raised public awareness of her judicial activism, celebrated the committee’s move.
“This is a MASSIVE victory for women EVERYWHERE,” he wrote on X. “Why? Netburn insisted on housing a biological male serial rapist in a women’s prison, where he committed yet another sexual offense. Today, sanity prevailed.”
Born William McClain, Shelby pleaded guilty in 1994 to molesting a nine-year-old boy and to raping a seventeen-year-old girl. After his release 18 years later, Shelby violated parole by using the internet in his apartment, landing himself in prison for another six years, until 2015. After being released again, Shelby underwent hormone therapy to begin transitioning to a female.
At the May hearing, Netburn testified that she found concerns that Shelby would sexually abuse female inmates “overblown.”
Shelby was entered into administrative segregation recently for exposing himself to female prisoners, the Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday.
“Congratulations, Judge Netburn, that’s what you’re doing to the women in this prison,” Cruz told the committee Wednesday. “You’re subjecting them to victimization and assault. If a guy on the subway did this, whipping out his genitalia to you on the subway, you’d deck the guy and arrest him for indecent exposure. But this radical says he’s got a constitutional right to be there and do this.”
Democratic senator Jon Ossoff broke with his party Wednesday to oppose the nomination of Netburn.
After Cruz pressed Netburn over her decision to move Shelby to live among women, current and former female inmates sounded the alarm over gender-inclusive prison housing policies in letters to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Most incarcerated women have already experienced sexual trauma and violence during our lives,” female former inmate Amie Ichikawa wrote to the committee in a letter sent by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and obtained by National Review. “We are trying to heal and prepare to be productive citizens after serving out our sentences. Having men in our prison systems disrupts all of this. We fear for our safety.”