Potential Supreme Court Candidate Defended Pipe Bomber, Child Murderer

One of President Obama’s potential candidates for the Supreme Court has a history of defending some of Iowa’s most infamous criminals, including the “Midwest Pipe Bomber” and the child molester who murdered five-year-old Evelyn Miller.

Judge Jane Kelly, who was appointed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2013, is reportedly on President Obama’s short list for the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Before becoming a judge, Kelly worked for years as a public defender in Iowa. In 2005, Kelly was the appointed attorney for a 26-year-old man named Casey Frederiksen, who was charged with possession of child pornography.

Although Frederiksen had previously been convicted of sexual assault involving a minor, Kelly urged the judge to grant him leniency, arguing that he was not a danger to others and should be released and allowed to live with his father. Frederiksen was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the case.

A decade later, Frederiksen was convicted of murder and sexual assault in the 2005 cold case killing of 5-year-old Evelyn Celeste Miller. Evelyn, the daughter of Frederiksen’s live-in girlfriend, was reported missing from her northern Iowa home on July 1, 2005. Over 1,500 people joined police to help search for the young girl. Her body was found with stab wounds on a nearby river bank two days later, and there was evidence she had been sexually assaulted. (Read more from “Potential Supreme Court Candidate Defended Pipe Bomber, Child Murderer” HERE)

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