On July 29, 2015, U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and U.S. Congressman Dave Reichert announced that they have formed a new judicial selection committee to select potential candidates for the seats on the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.
The committee is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans from Western Washington, who will be charged with advertising for the open position and screening potential candidates. The committee will then present three candidates to Murray and Cantwell, who will interview them and, if they are acceptable, recommend them to President Obama. The President will make the final decision regarding selection of nominees and formal nomination. The senators from Washington state will only support candidates who have been selected by this bipartisan committee.
Mike McKay
NAFUSA Foundation President Mike McKay and Jenny Durkan, one of NAFUSA’s newest members, have been named co-chairs of the committee. McKay served as the U.S. Attorney for the WD of Washington, 1989-1993, and is also a past president of NAFUSA. Durkan served as U.S. Attorney in the WD of Washington, 2009-2014.
Past NAFUSA president James S. Brady has been selected to receive the highest honor Western Michigan University can confer on its alumni–the Distinguished Alumni Award. Brady, office managing member of Dykema Grand Rapids is one of two 2015 award recipients. Established in 1963, the Distinguished Alumni Awards program honors and celebrates alumni who bring distinction to their alma mater through professional accomplishments and who have achieved a high level of success in their careers.
Brady earned a Bachelor of Science in political science from WMU in 1966. He joined Dykema Grand Rapids as office managing member in 2010 to lead the expansion of the firm’s regional presence and bolster its white collar defense practice. Dykema is a leading national law firm with 12 offices that focuses on handling a wide variety of business issues for Fortune 1,000 companies and institutions. After graduating from WMU, Brady immediately continued his education at Notre Dame, earning a Juris Doctor in 1969. Early in his legal career, he was appointed U.S. attorney for the Western Judicial District of Michigan by President Jimmy Carter.
He joined the Miller Johnson law firm in 1981 and was chair of its Criminal Law Group before accepting his current position at Dykema Grand Rapids. Then-governor James Blanchard appointed him to the WMU Board of Trustees in 1987, and Brady served with distinction through one of the University’s greatest periods of growth. He previously also served as a member of the WMU Foundation Board of Directors, holding such positions as the board’s chair as well as chair of its Committee on Directors. Listed in “Who’s Who in America,” Brady has received numerous accolades. He was honored by Michigan Lawyers Weekly when the publication included him in its 2009 class of Leaders in the Law. Additionally, he was recognized by Michigan Super Lawyers in the areas of criminal defense and civil litigation defense from 2006 through 2014 and has been recognized in “The Best Lawyers in America” editions in multiple practice areas from 2003 to 2015.
NAFUSA member John Tinder has announced his retirement from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, effective in August. See “Tinder departs 7th Circuit” in The Indiana Lawyer, July 29, 2015. Judge Tinder served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, 1984-1987, and as a federal judge for 20 years on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana before moving to the 7th Circuit eight years ago. He will leave the bench upon completion of his final opinions which are being circulated among panel judges. He is only 65 but hasn’t yet decided what is next in his impressive career. In the meantime he has registered to attend the Scottsdale conference in October.
NAFUSA Board Member Bob Miller, shown right, prosecuted a case in the 70s which involved serial murders (18 in all) committed across the United States by a nomadic family. Miller authored a book about the case (“Death Roads”- still available online). On August 4, 2015, Investigation Discovery will air a film about Miller’s case, entitled “Highway to Hell”. The family lived in a car traveling across the country robbing, kidnapping, raping and killing young women who worked in convenience stores.
In an article published yesterday in Law 360, NAFUSA member Troy Eid, shown left, discusses issues surrounding the recent federal criminal raids of marijuana production on the Alturas Indian Rancheria and the Pit River XL Ranch Reservation in Northeastern California which seized at least 12,000 marijuana plants and 100 pounds of processed marijuana.
Eid writes:
A high-profile criminal investigation of two marijuana cultivation facilities on Native American lands in California is a reminder that despite recent U.S. Department of Justice assurances of possible prosecutorial forbearance, tribes considering violating the federal drug laws-even for the sake of much-needed economic development-may do so at their peril.
Troy Eid is the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado and is a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig’s Denver office and co-chairman of he firm’s American Indian law practice group. He previously chaired the Indian Law and Order Commission and currently serves on the Tribal Issues Advisory Committee of the United States Sentencing Commission.
A bipartisan group of 16 NAFUSA members led by Tim Heaphy, shown left, have signed a letter directed to Senators Grassley and Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging strong support for the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015.
The letter, dated July 16, 2015, begins:
As former United States Attorneys and officials of the United States Department of Justice in both Democratic and Republican administrations, we share a lifelong commitment to enhancing the effectiveness of the American criminal justice system. That shared commitment leads us to speak out in favor of specific proposals to improve the system within which we have worked for so long. Today we write in strong support the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015, which would if passed make the federal criminal justice system both more just and more effective.
Margolis is the senior-most career employee in the department and one whose tenure out-clocks that of J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary FBI director. A tall, shambling bear of a man, Margolis has been the consigliere to a succession of deputy attorneys general, with a Forrest Gump-like knack to be involved with a number of the most politically controversial issues of the department’s past 25 years.
DLA Piper announced on June 4, 2015, that Rachel Paulose, former United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota, and NAFUSA’s newest member, has joined the firm as a partner in its litigation practice in Minneapolis. She joins NAFUSA members Earl Silbert and Kathryn Keneally at DLA Piper.
Paulose comes to DLA Piper after an extensive career in public service. When she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate in 2006 to serve as the US Attorney for the District of Minnesota, Paulose became the first Indian American to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve in any federal appointment. Under her leadership, the office recorded the highest number of prosecutions in the District’s history. Paulose also oversaw landmark prosecutions of white collar crime, public corruption, and violent crime trafficking cartels.
Previously, Paulose worked as senior trial counsel with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, where she investigated and litigated complex civil cases involving violations of federal securities laws, as well as coordinated prosecutions with national and international law enforcement agencies.
Prior to this role, Paulose was counselor to the Assistant US Attorney General and supervised nationwide policy development for white collar crime, healthcare fraud and national security. Before that, she was senior counsel to the Deputy US Attorney General, special counsel for Health Care Fraud, and special assistant to the Attorney General, for which she reported directly to the US Attorney General.
From 1999-2002, Paulose served as assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota before going into private practice. She began her legal career as a law clerk for Hon. James B. Loken of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and thereafter joined the US Department of Justice as a US Attorney General’s Honors Program trial attorney in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division.
“As a former AUSA, USA, and SEC attorney, Rachel has significant white collar crime and governmental investigatory credentials that will resonate with companies, particularly those in the Twin Cities that are doing business globally,” said Alan Kildow, managing partner of DLA Piper’s Minneapolis office.
Paulose received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a Coker Fellow, and her B.A. from the University of Minnesota, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has named Davis Polk litigation partner Neil MacBride to the Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Criminal Justice Act (CJA). MacBride is the only private practice lawyer to serve on the Committee, alongside federal judges, federal defenders and law professors.
The 11-member Committee, chaired by Judge Kathleen Cardone, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, will review the impact of judicial involvement in the selection and compensation of federal public defenders and the independence of federal defender organizations; equal employment and diversity efforts in federal defender organizations; judicial involvement in the appointment, compensation, and management of panel attorneys, investigators, experts and other service providers; and the adequacy of compensation and quality of representation for legal services provided under the CJA.
The CJA was established in 1964 to establish a comprehensive system for appointing and compensating lawyers to represent defendants financially unable to retain counsel in federal criminal proceedings.
MacBride’s practice focuses on government enforcement actions, internal investigations, congressional investigations and complex civil litigation. Before joining Davis Polk, he served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. MacBride currently serves on the NAFUSA board of directors.
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