NAFUSA member and former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh spoke at a June 24, 2013, program on U.S. and International Anti-Corruption Law at American University Columbus College of Law. The title of Thornburgh’s address was The Global Effort to Contain Official Corruption. He reviews the efforts being made to deal with official corruption, both at the country level and at the level of multi-national organizations. He then discusses a “checklist of the ‘nuts and bolts’ required for executing an effective anti-corruption program, ” and concludes:

Any message of quality of life in any country or region must include consideration of its quality of governance. In the long run, corrupt rulers cannot provide their constituents with fulfillment of their hopes and aspirations at a price they are willing to tolerate. Sooner or later, citizens worldwide will demand higher standards and more accountability from those who govern them. And that will hold out the promise of true progress for all.

Thornburgh also served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania (1969-1975), Governor of Pennsylvania (1979-1987) and Under-Secretary General of the United Nations (1992-1993). He currently practices with K&L Gates in Washington.

In this morning’s New York Times Op-Ed piece entitled Let Shooting Victims Sue, NAFUSA member Robert M. Morgenthau writes that gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers should be held responsible for reckless acts that send guns to the black market.

Morgenthau writes:

The Second Amendment right to bear arms is an important right. But the contours of that right must not extend to those who look away as their guns enter the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable. Congress should immediately repeal the 2005 gun immunity law, and let free-market incentives encourage responsible behavior by the gun industry.

Morgenthau, who was honored by NAFUSA in 2010 upon his retirement as the Manhattan district attorney from 1975 to 2009, served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, 1961-1970. In the photo above, Morgenthau is shown at the NAFUSA reception in New York in his honor, with (left to right) Ron Woods, Rich Rossman, New York DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., Robert Morgenthau, Rudy Giuliani and Otto Obermaier

On June 10, 2013, the Justice Department filed a petition asking the Merit Systems Protection Board to reverse the decision by Adminstrative Judge Benjamin Gutman in April that the Department had violated internal procedure in the disciplinary actions against AUSAs Joseph Bottini and James Goeke. The two assistants were accused of ethical violations in the corruption cases against the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.

The Office of Professional Responsibility had concluded that Goeke and Bottini committed professional misconduct in the Stevens case. The Justice Department overruled career DOJ attorney Terrence Berg who had determined the two had exercised poor judgment but not professional misconduct.

NAFUSA board member Kenneth Wainstein represents Bottini and said Berg “was dead right when he concluded that Joe had made honest mistakes that were not professional misconduct, and MSPB Judge Gutman was equally right to find a procedural violation when the Justice Department ignored that conclusion.”

John E. Clark, shown above with his family, one of the founding members of NAFUSA, was honored on Law Day 2013 by the San Antonio Bar Association with the Joe Frazier Brown Award of Excellence. The award is given annually and is named after a distinguished former judge, now deceased. The inscription on the plaque states “In recognition of outstanding leadership and service to members of the legal community and citizens of Texas.”

Clark, a life member and former president of NAFUSA, served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas 1975-1977. He is currently a partner at Goode, Casseb, Jones, Choate & Watson, P.C. in San Antonio. He mentioned that Doug Jones, who is featured in another post this month, spoke at the San Antonio Bar Association Law Day luncheon a few years ago on his prosecution of the church bombing case. Clark urges others to invite Jones to their bar meetings to talk about his extraordinary efforts in that historic case.

On Friday, May 24, 2013, President Obama signed a Congressional bill bestowing posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal to the four victims of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing: 11-year -old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthis Wesley. NAFUSA board member Doug Jones, shown left, was invited to attend the ceremony at the White House. Jones, during his service as United States Attorney, was the lead prosecutor in the 2001 and 2002 convictions of two men for the church bombing, nearly 40 years after the 1963 bombing. The ceremony was also attended by the mayor of Birmingham and surviving relatives of the four victims.

In an interview with The Birmingham News, Jones said:

It’s hard to describe how special it is being there in the Oval Office with the first African American president, who really is in that office in part because of the deaths of those four girls. It’s indescribable what it means to me.

As reported by The Birmingham News, Jones called the Gold Medal and other commemoration activities in Birmingham this year important for several reasons. Events in Birmingham 50 years ago had world-wide significance, changing policy in this county, and inspiring human rights efforts elsewhere, Jones explained.

The lessons of Birmingham from 1963 show what can be done to change people’s hearts, people’s minds and give everyone access to civil rights. That was one of the pivotal points in the county’s history for basic civil rights.

Jones called the civil rights era a revolution that should be celebrated just as the nation continues to celebrate the American Revolution.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Tamika Moore tmoore@al.com)

Former NAFUSA Executive Director and current board member Ronald G. Woods, shown above left, was honored on May 9, 2013, in Houston when he was chosen as the recipient of the 2013 Garland R. Walker American Inn of Court’s Professionalism Award. Each year the award is made to a Houston-area lawyer “whose personal life and professional achievements have exhibited integrity, compassion and a commitment to the highest standards of the legal profession.”

The Garland R. Walker American Inn of Court is one of over 300 Inns across the nation that make up the American Inns of Court movement. The mission of the ALC is to foster professionalism, ethics, civility and excellence in legal skills.

Woods served as United States Attorney 1990-1993 for the Southern District of Texas. He is also a former FBI Speical Agent. He holds his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.

NAFUSA lifetime member Matthew G. Whitaker will make his official announcement to enter the U.S. Senate race on June 3. He is the first Republican in Iowa to declare his intentions for the seat currently held by Democrat Tom Harkin. Whitaker served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa from 2005-2009. He played college football for the Iowa Hawkeyes, earning Academic All- American honors in 1992. He was the tight end on the 1990 Big Ten Champion football team and played in the 1991 Rose Bowl game.

Whitaker is the managing partner of Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff LLP, a law firm located in Des Moines, Iowa. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law.