NAFUSA member William “Bill” Killian (ED Tennessee 2010-2015), has authored a new book, “Won’t Back Down: The Journey from Small Town Tennessee to Presidentially Appointed United States Attorney.” In a compilation of legal anecdotes, Bill shares the experiences, cases, and instances of injustice that defined his career as a trial lawyer and his path to becoming a United States Attorney.

Prior to his work as U.S. Attorney, Killian was a sole practitioner in his law firm in Jasper, Tenn., was city attorney for the city of Monteagle, Tenn. for 21 years and was the assistant district attorney for the Twelfth Judicial District in Tennessee. Throughout his professional career, Killian has held various teaching positions with colleges and universities in east Tennessee and the University of Tennessee College of Law. He served in the United States Army and the Tennessee National Guard from December 1970 to January 1973.

Killian earned his law degree from the University of Tennessee School of Law in 1973 after completing his B.S. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He is a former member of the Tennessee Bar Association House of Delegates and the Board of Directors for the American Red Cross Chattanooga Chapter.

NAFUSA Immediate Past President Hal Hardin received two honors in his home state of Tennessee.

On November 7, 2018, at the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual banquet in Memphis, Tennessee, Hal was presented a leadership plaque for his service as past president of the society.

On December 5, 2018, at the National Bar Association’s Annual Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, Hal was presented with the John C. Tune Public Service Award, an accolade given to a member who “makes outstanding contributions to the greater Nashville area community while distinguishing themselves as practicing attorneys.”  The award is the highest award which can be bestowed upon a member by the Bar.

This morning Ron Woods, NAFUSA Executive Director Emeritus, sent this email to his fellow Bush 41 appointees, resulting in some fine photos with the President:

To Bush 41 U.S. Attorneys

   I hope you were able to watch the two funerals/celebrations of life that were televised over the past two days in Washington and Houston. The military arranged the funerals and they were spectacular, with a flight overhead of 21 Navy jets as President Bush arrived at his final resting place at his Presidential Library at Texas A & M.

  The celebrations showing his accomplishments and how respected and admired he was made me feel very proud that I was appointed by President Bush and I hope you felt the same. President Bush was finally recognized for the many achievements he obtained in his one term Presidency.  Bush was a remarkable human being devoted to public service, honor, duty, country. He was such a gentleman to everyone.

  Several months ago, our Houston Chapter of Former FBI Agents was having our monthly lunch in a private room in a local restaurant. During the lunch, the door was opened and James Baker pushed President Bush into the room in his wheelchair. There were about 30 of us in the room and James Baker said “I’m James Baker and I used to be Secretary of State and President Bush wanted to say a few words to you”

   President Bush said that he was having lunch in the restaurant and the manager advised him that ex FBI Agents were having lunch in the private room. He stated I don’t want to interrupt your lunch but I wanted to express my thanks for your public service and how much I admire the FBI and the men and women who serve in the FBI. He was such a class act.

  The news as I write this is that our friend and colleague  Former Attorney General Bill Barr is the front runner to be named Attorney General.  Further proof of the soundness of President Bush appointees.

   The photo below was taken at the 1992 Republican Convention in Houston as I was coordinating with the Secret Service on security issues.

Ron Woods

On December 21, 1988, the bombing of PanAm 103 took the life of NAFUSA member Rick Hartunian’s 21 year old sister, Lynne, over Lockerbie, Scotland. Rick (Obama appointee), NAFUSA member Dan French (Clinton appointee), and former U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby (Bush appointee) traveled with their spouses and Glenn’s fiancé to Lockerbie, Scotland to participate in the Cycle to Syracuse, an idea conceived by now retired Lockerbie Police Officer Colin Dorrance to honor the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which occurred 30 years ago. The journey, which is summarized in this video clip, https://youtu.be/6OOeNzmH1ls , was meant to symbolically complete the journey that Rick’s sister Lynne and the other 258 lost passengers, together with 11 Lockerbie residents, were unable to complete. Dan is the General Counsel at Syracuse University; Glenn is a the Chief U.S. District Judge in the NDNY, and Glenn’s fiancé, Jill Denny, is a senior assistant to the Chancellor and helped staff the event for Syracuse University, which sent a contingent of students and faculty to Scotland on October 13 to start the first leg of the ride, from Lockerbie to Edinburgh.  Dan cycled that 80 mile trip, wearing a photograph of Rick’s sister along the way.

After the trip through Scotland, the journey continued from Washington DC, where the Lockerbie riders began the 600 mile US cycling leg, up the Eastern seaboard through New York City and into Upstate New York, through Albany and finally onto Syracuse.  In Syracuse, the Lockerbie riders — accompanied by Dan and Glenn for the final 60 mile leg of the journey — were greeted by families and students and participated in Remembrance Week ceremonies at Syracuse University, honoring all of the victims of the tragedy, including the 35 Syracuse students lost in the bombing.

In recalling the events of 30 years ago, Rick Hartunian explained that “while the pain of losing a loved one never goes away, coping with such terrible loss is made easier by the kind gestures of friends who, like Dan, Glenn, the Lockerbie riders and all those who participated in these remembrance events, show that gestures of love and brotherhood will always outlast and overcome the forces of hatred and evil that too often challenge us in ways we never could imagine.”

At the top is a photograph of the three former NDNY USAs (Dan French, Rick Hartunian and Glenn Suddaby) at the beginning of the journey in Lockerbie on October 13, 2018. Below is a photo of the three former US Attorney colleagues at the journey’s end in Syracuse, New York on November 2, 2018.

David Hickton (Photo: Matthew Sobocinski)

On Thursday, November 29, 2018, USA Today featured NAFUSA member David Hickton (WD Pennsylvania, 2010-2016) in a front page article ‘Time to put a stop to this’: Why a Catholic prosecutor who witnessed abuse took on his own church. When Hickton served as the United States Attorney he brought a RICO indictment against the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese charging it as an interstate criminal enterprise, based on allegations that for years several priests had abused hundreds of children. Hickton told USA Today that as a sixth-grade basketball player in a Catholic grade school, “he regularly witnessed the agony of teammates after they were violated in the school’s locker room” by the basketball coach and the Catholic priest did nothing when allegations surfaced. Hickton was not physically abused himself.

Hickton is the founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security.

The LA Daily Journal reported today that NAFUSA Secretary Chuck Stevens has been appointed by U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller of the Eastern District of of California to investigate allegations that the California state’s prisons department has been lying to the court about its compliance with court-mandated policies governing how it treats inmates seeking mental health services.

Stevens, who served as the United States Attorney for the ED of California (1993-1997), is the partner-in-charge of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s San Francisco office and co-chair of the firm’s white-collar defense and investigations practice. According to the Daily Journal, Stevens is “to look into claims made by the prisons department chief psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Golding. In October, Golding issued a whistleblower report that alleged prison officials had falsified data given to the court and the special master measuring the department’s compliance with court orders. Coleman v. Brown, 90-CV0520 (E.D.Cal., filed Apr. 23, 1990).”

NAFUSA member Richard Pocker has been elected president of the Nevada State Bar.  He was sworn in at the Bar’s annual convention in Chicago.  Pocker is the administrative partner for the Nevada office of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.  His practice includes civil and criminal litigation, as well as employment law.  He was selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America from 2010 through 2019.

After his graduation from the University of Virginia Law School in 1980, Pocker served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps with the Seventh Infantry Division, followed by a six-year stint with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada.  Beginning as an assistant U.S. attorney in 1985, Pocker rose through the ranks to become first the chief assistant U.S. attorney, and ultimately the United States Attorney in 1989.

After departing the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Pocker entered private practice, where he was a partner in the Las Vegas law firm of Dickerson, Dickerson, Consul & Pocker from 1991 to 2005.  He joined Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in 2005.

In 1996, he returned briefly to government service, serving as chief counsel to the Select Subcommittee on the United States Role in the Iranian Arms Transfers to Croatia and Bosnia, leading a congressional investigation of national security intelligence and foreign policy issue on behalf of the International Relations Committee of the United States House of Representatives.  Nationally, he also served as chair of the Federal Litigation Section of the Federal Bar Association (2007 to 2010).

Back home in Nevada, he served on the Southern Nevada Disciplinary Board for the Nevada State Bar from 1993 to 2003, the last four years as the Board’s chair.  In 2006, he was honored as a patron of the Nevada Law Foundation, an organization dedicated to the provision of legal services to the indigent.  In May 2011 he was elected to the Nevada State Bar’s Board of Governors, and has served on that Board continuously since then, reelected to a fourth term in 2017.  In 2015 he was awarded the State Bar of Nevada’s Medal of Justice Award, for his service on the board of the Nevada Bar Foundation.