EDITORIAL: Nominated U.S. attorney must avoid all conflicts in Portage mayor's prosecution
The Times Editorial Board
NWI Times
July 25, 2017
nwitimes.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-nominated-u-s-attorney-must-avoid-all-conflicts-in/article_d89c5be8-6042-5388-ad6e-9ba510deab2e.html
Thomas Lee Kirsch II's nomination to head the U.S. attorney's office in Hammond arrives with a high-profile question of conflict of interest.
Kirsch is one of the defense attorneys hired to defend Portage Mayor James Snyder in an ongoing felony public corruption indictment.
The Hammond-based federal prosecutor's office Kirsch will lead has a sterling reputation for pursuing and winning convictions against public officials accused of abusing the public trust.
As Kirsch heads to U.S. Senate confirmation hearings in the coming months, it’s imperative the Hammond office and U.S. Department of Justice lay a framework for ensuring Snyder's prosecution goes forward with no related conflicts of interest.
It's not the first time this has happened in the naming of new federal top prosecutors, and it won't be the last.
U.S. attorneys are almost always named from the ranks of successful attorneys within a jurisdiction. Those attorneys, as a matter of course, have worked for clients — sometimes high-profile ones — who ultimately face charges from the same jurisdiction's U.S. attorney's office.
Snyder is slated to be tried in Hammond federal court in January — under the prosecution of the office one of his defense attorneys has been nominated to lead.
The Standards of Conduct page of the U.S. Department of Justice Offices of the U.S. Attorneys' website states that on entering the department for duty, attorneys must, in general, withdraw from all cases they are currently handling and avoid an appearance of biased or less-than-impartial conduct.
State and Region legal experts say this can be achieved in a few ways. Sometimes such cases are moved to a different federal prosecutor's jurisdiction. In the Snyder case, for example, the case could be transferred to the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago or Indianapolis.
In some cases, the prosecution remains in the original jurisdiction, but an internal wall is formed under which an assistant U.S. attorney supervises the prosecution, independent of the head prosecutor who may have conflicts of interest with the case.
Whatever is decided, it's clear Kirsch, who is expected to be confirmed, should have nothing to do with Snyder's prosecution.
Snyder is a top public official, and all parties involved, including Region residents, deserve to know the mayor's prosecution is being handled with justice in mind and free of potential conflicts.
The local U.S. attorney's office and U.S. Department of Justice owe it to all of us to transparently communicate to the public how this will be achieved.
No comments:
Post a Comment