NAFUSA member Joe Whitely, shown above at the 2013 NAFUSA conference in Washington, will co-chair the program for the September 11-12, 2014 ABA Criminal Justice Section Southeastern White Collar Crime Institute. It will be held at the Chateuau Elan Inn in Brasselton, Georgia, and will feature several NAFUSA members as speakers: Bart Daniel, Rick Deane, Tom Dillard and Jack Selden.
NAFUSA member Bill Leone (Colorado 2004-2006) has been chosen to lead the white collar and government investigations practice in the New York office of Norton Rose Fulbright. Bill served as US Attorney in Colorado and led several high profile, complex white collar investigations including the prosecution of Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio.
Norton Rose Fulbright, one of NAFUSA’s sponsors, is the 3rd largest law firm in the world following the combination of Norton Rose LLP and Fulbright & Jaworski, with 55 offices around the globe, including North and South America, Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia. Bill will continue to spend time in Denver where he maintains his practice and has led the litigation group for the past three years. Bill’s practice includes investigations in the energy, medical device, health care and technology sectors, as well as a portfolio of white collar cases and civil and criminal trials.
On June 5, 2014, NAFUSA member Anton “Tony” Valukas issued his report of his internal investigation of General Motors regarding the failure of the company to fix a deadly safety defect, which is alleged to have led to at least 13 deaths. Read the entire report here.
As a result of the investigation and report, GM dismissed 15 employees, including a vice president for regulatory affairs and a senior lawyer responsible for product liability cases. The report is expected to lead to broad changes in how GM handles vehicle safety.
Valukas was critical of the GM bureaucracy. “The Cobalt ignition switch passed through an astonishing number of committees,” he wrote. “But determining the identity of any actual decision-maker was impenetrable.”
The Valukas report, however, did clear Mary T. Barra G.M.’s chief executive, and Michael Millikin, the general counsel. Valukas found no evidence of a deliberate cover-up.
Valukas is the chairman of Jenner & Block LLP and served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois from 1985 to 1989. He also served as the Justice Department appointed examiner of the downfall of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc.
NAFUSA lifetime member John Ratcliffe defeated Rep. Ralph Hall on Tuesday, 53%-47% in a GOP primary runoff for the 4th Congressional District of Texas, which covers the northeast corner of the state. Hall, the 90 year old GOP incumbent, the oldest member of Congress, has served 34 years or 17 terms. Hall is the first incumbent to lose renomination this cycle. With no Democratic candidate, Ratcliffe will be unopposed in November, and will join fellow NAFUSA member Susan Brooks in Congress.
Ratcliffe served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, 2007-2008. He had served as first assistant to NAFUSA President-Elect Matt Orwig, and succeeded Orwig when the latter returned to private practice.
Ratcliffe is currently a partner with the Ashcroft Law Firm in the Dallas office. He earned his Juris Doctor at the Southern Methodist University School of Law. He has served as adjunct professor of law at both SMU and Texas Wesleyan University. He also served as mayor of Heath, Texas for eight years.
In an article in the Thursday, May 22, 2014, issue of The New York Times entitled From Virginia, Chasing Down Credit Suisse, NAFUSA member Neil MacBride is featured for his former leadership of the Eastern District of Virginia. Credit Suisse is headquartered in Zurich and has an office in New York, but its only contact with MacBride’s district was the fact that a Credit Suisse client flew out of Dulles Airport on his way to Zurich. That fact justified the indictment which led this week to the bank pleading guilty to helping thousands of American clients hide their wealth overseas.
The Times article discusses how MacBride, now a partner at Davis Polk, and his colleagues in the ED of Virginia were aggressive in claiming jurisdiction in a number of other cases as well to bring financial investigations into their district.
“There was a huge financial crisis that rocked the world, and it didn’t matter to us if the frauds occurred within the four corners of our district or around the globe,” said Mr. MacBride, who left behind investigations involving 60 countries when he left office last September.
The Justice Department announced on Thursday, May 22, 2014, that the F.B.I. and other federal agencies would be required to videotape interviews with suspects in most instances. The F.B.I. had previously opposed videotaping, arguing that the tapes could reveal agents’ interrogation tactics and discourage witnesses from talking.
NAFUSA member Paul Charlton, shown right, former U.S. Attorney in Arizona, had been vocal in his opposition to the former policy during his term in office, and had reached out to Director Jim Comey’s staff urging a change. The New York Times in an article entitled In Policy Change, Justice Dept. to Require Recording of Interrogations, quotes Charlton at length on the change:
Charlton said federal prosecutors were unnecessarily losing cases because they were unable to present to jurors the most damning evidence available to them: videotaped confessions.
“The most difficult part of proving a crime is the state of mind, and that is almost always obtained through a statement of the suspect,” Mr. Charlton, now a lawyer in private practice, said in telephone interview.
“It was an unjustifiable policy,” he said. “I think this is one of the most significant improvements in the criminal justice system in a long time.”
In case you noticed that the posts have been few and far between this month, the reason is that Executive Director Rich Rossman, along with his wife, Patty, and former Executive Director Ron Woods and his wife, Patty, visited Russia for a two week river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Any pre-trip concerns about the impact of the increased tensions over the Ukraine were quickly forgotten in touring this great and wonderful country. As Winston Churchill once said, “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
Your editor, however, is now back to work. I hope I haven’t missed any important news. Please feel free to email any member news that should be shared.
Rich & Patty Rossman, Ron & Patty Woods on the Moscow River, May 19, 2014
The Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA), signed into law by President Obama in July, 2011 with bipartisan support, with the purpose to make federal agencies more accountable for serving Indian lands. NAFUSA member Troy Eid was named chairman of the Indian Law & Order Commission, and recently completed his three year term. In November 2013, the Commission produced its report to the President and the Congress entitles A Roadmap for Making Native America Safer.
Eid, who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Colorado, 2006-2009, is currently a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig in the Denver office. At the 2009 NAFUSA conference in Seattle, Eid spoke on a panel on tribal issues. Recently he was interviewed by the Indian Country Today Media Network, Troy Eid on Why Tribes Need Control Over Their Justice Systems. High on the list of areas for reform, Eid argues, are Native American juvenile justice issues and Alaska Native justice issues. In January, Eid also authored a guest commentary in The Denver Post Opinion – The invisible crisis killing Native American youth. After commending President Obama for demanding better care for returning vets who suffer from PTSD, Eid says:
Yet there’s another massive PTSD tragedy in Colorado and across our country. It generates virtually zero public attention because it concerns what may be the most vulnerable group of our citizens: Native Americans and Alaska Natives. Because they’re exposed so frequently to violent crime, an astonishing one in four Native American juveniles currently suffers from PTSD.
In 1997 Michael E. Tigar and former NAFUSA executive director Ronald Woods, shown in a 1997 photo, began the defense of Terry Nichols for his alleged role in conspiring with Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal court house, which resulted in the death of at least 169 people. McVeigh had been convicted in a separate trial and received the death penalty. Tigar and Woods succeeded in obtaining a change of venue to Colorado, and the jury found Nichols guilty on the conspiracy count, not guilty of arson, use of a weapon of mass destruction, first degree murder, second degree murder, but guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Nichols was sentenced to life without parole.
In the April 2014 issue of the Michigan Law Review, Tigar reviews the recent book Killing McVeigh: The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure, by Jody Lynee Maderia. Tigar entitles his review Missing Mcveigh and reflects on his experience defending Nichols with Woods, who he calls “the best cocounsel one could imagine.” According to Tigar, Maderia’s book “examines the ways that victims groups came together and the goals they set for themselves” and that “Maderia exposes and dismisses the myth that killing a perpetrator gives victims any benefit that can meaningfully be called closure.”
The Tigar review is full of memories of the the Oklahoma City bombing and trials.
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