NAAUSA has written to the Chairs and ranking members of the appropriations committee that oversees the DOJ bugdet and asked them to approve the House committee funding level for FY 2012. The House level is higher than the Senate approved level. Long-time NAAUSA members know that NAAUSA has been effective in the past in working to safeguard the USAO budgets from major cuts and has actually been instrumental in increasing the size of the USAO budgets.

The terms of all NAAUSA delegates, directors and officers ends December 31, 2011. The NAAUSA bylaws require that the distribution of districts by region be reviewed every three years.

NAAUSA asks EOUSA about increase in threats and assaults against AUSAs and asks for improvements.

United States Attorney Offices are beginning to take stock of the new EOUSA guidance, issued on September 22, that delegates authority to USAOs to annually commit up to $3,000 from their office accounts for the purchase of "gymnasium and athletic equipment and/or accessories" for a fitness facility operated by another federal agency in exchange for access and use by USAO employees, including AUSAs. According to the September 22 memo from EOUSA Director Marshall Jarrett to all USAOs, the funds may also be used toward access fees to another agency's fitness facility. Director Jarrett in the memo pointed to the instrumental role that NAAUSA played in bringing about this constructive revision in EOUSA policy that will promote better health and fitness by all AUSAs.

As the Congress prepares to address government funding for the remainder of the 2011 Fiscal Year, we urge you to preserve funding for United States Attorneys’ Offices at current spending levels and to exercise restraint in imposing cuts that would undermine the performance of their crucial responsibility for prosecuting federal crimes and pursuing and defending civil enforcement actions. At the outset, we note that the establishment of a federal spending plan that reduces spending and meets the needs of our country in these economically troubling times is an extraordinarily challenging task. We as a nation possess a moral obligation to pass on to our children a fiscally sound government that promises hope and opportunity for future generations. At the same time, the pursuit of justice and the preservation of law and order will be severely tested without sufficient resources for our United States Attorneys’ Offices.

To the Editor of USA Today: Sadly your article (Prosecutors’ conduct can tip justice scales, Sept. 24) inaccurately and unfairly portrayed the professionalism and integrity of the thousands of federal prosecutors who have never been subject to the slightest suggestion of ethical misconduct or lapse of judgment. Even by USA Today’s own statistics, federal prosecutors fulfilled their ethical responsibilities in nearly all – an astounding 99.97 percent -- of the more than 675,000 criminal cases they brought in the federal courts since 1998. Your focus on prosecutorial misconduct – as though this was a common phenomenon in the federal courts – is clearly off the mark, simply by the numbers. As in all professions, lawyers sometimes make inadvertent mistakes. For prosecutors, as well as for federal judges and defense attorneys, rising caseloads and increasingly complex litigation can contribute to the rare inadvertent error that goes on to make headlines. Substantial safeguards exist to both prevent and address prosecutorial error. Federal prosecutors receive mandatory ethics and discovery training by the Department of Justice every year. Every prosecutor’s work is scrutinized by supervisors, the grand jury and the trial judge. Whenever claims of improper conduct are raised, prosecutors face review and potential discipline by DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, state bar authorities, and the trial courts. In a nation governed by laws, federal prosecutors strive not to win cases, but to assure that justice is fairly sought and dispensed. Steven H. Cook President, National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys

NAAUSA enjoyed success last month in the amicus brief it filed with the Supreme Court, asking the Court to award review of an Eighth Circuit decision curtailing prosecutorial immunity. The Supreme Court announced on April 20 that it had awarded certiorari in the case in the next term. NAAUSA, along with the National Association of District Attorneys, had jointly filed an amicus brief in support of the cert petition. The case is an appeal by county prosecutors of the 8th Circuit's decision in Pottawattamie County, Iowa v. Harrington and McGhee, No. 08-1065. The issue before the Supreme Court is whether a prosecutor can be held liable under Section 1983 for a wrongful conviction and incarceration stemming from the prosecutor’s procurement of false testimony during the investigation of a crime and the subsequent use of that testimony at the trial itself. The NAAUSA-NADA amicus brief was prepared with the excellent pro bono assistance of Tom Goldstein of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, and Amy Howe of Howell & Russell, P.C. Information about the case is available on the NAAUSA website.