Her father was a Baptist minister, as was his father. Her mother was a farm worker who became a librarian. Lynch attended a mostly white elementary school, and when she once scored well on an achievement test, school officials made her retake the test because they assumed she had cheated on it. She did as well the second time.
She remained in Cambridge to attend Harvard Law, receiving her J. Lynch began her legal career in private practice as a litigation associate for the firm of Cahill Gordon and Reindel in New York. In , Lynch joined the office of the U. One of her most noteworthy cases was the prosecution of the Green Dragons, a Chinese gang that was convicted of racketeering and murder. Lynch was named chief of the Long Island office in and served there until , when she was named chief assistant U.
Her most prominent case while there came when she helped prosecute New York City policeman Justin Volpe, who had been among those involved in the assault and forcible sodomization of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.
Midway through his trial in , Volpe pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. She served only two years before being replaced by a George W. Bush appointee in She focused on commercial litigation, white-collar criminal defense and corporate compliance. She also served in as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and conducted a special investigation into allegations of witness tampering and false testimony at the tribunal.
In , Lynch was again appointed to serve as U. She led the prosecution for embezzlement of former New York state senate majority leader Pedro Espada Jr. Michael Grimm R-New York for tax fraud.
Despite the indictment, Grimm was easily re-elected to Congress in the general election. In Lynch married Stephen Hargrove, and she has two stepchildren.
One of her brothers, Leonzo, followed their father into the ministry, the other, Lorenzo Jr. Main Menu. Back to Departments Back to Department of Justice. Department of Justice.
History: The Judiciary Act of created the Office of the Attorney General AG to represent the federal government in cases before the US Supreme Court and to give legal advice to the President and the heads of cabinet-level departments.
The Judiciary Act of made no provision for a Department of Justice or even for subsidiary officers or clerical staff to assist the attorney general in his duties. After several failed attempts to convince Congress to expand the office of the Attorney General, legislation was adopted in Instead, it created a Solicitor of the Treasury with authority over all Treasury lawsuits and to provide rules for the district attorneys around the country to follow in regard to all civil litigation in which the United States was a party.
Another important provision of the legislation was the creation of the Office of Solicitor General, who took over the responsibilities of representing the government in cases before the Supreme Court. During the 20th Century, the AG evolved into the public image of the Justice Department, becoming as much a political figure as a legal one.
When President John F. Kennedy was elected to the White House in , he appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, to serve as attorney general. The s witnessed the first woman to lead the Justice Department. During this time period, legal controversies surrounded the Clinton White House, from Whitewater to Monica Lewinsky to impeachment, which required Reno to make difficult decisions as to whether to appoint special prosecutors to investigate claims of illegal or improper behavior by the President.
The current administration of George W. The Solicitor General in Historical Context. Solicitors General of the United States. Office of the Attorney General. The Office of the AGis the lead entity within the Department of Justice that oversees all operations of the department. Although the AG post is held by a lawyer, the attorney general is often viewed as much as a political figure as a legal one.
Over the years there have been numerous attorneys general who have been lightning rods for controversy. Federal Bureau of Investigation. From investigating organized crime to snooping on would-be terrorists, the FBI carries out critical police activities while enforcing federal laws. The FBI operates 56 field offices in major US cities and more than resident agencies that support the work at field offices. But over time numerous controversies have tarnished the once-legendary operation. Even after making substantial changes to its intelligence gathering operations, the FBI is still under threat of losing some of its authority.
US Marshals Service. Federal marshals have been serving the country since , and today direct the 94 individual federal judicial districts. Marshals also have been accused of bending, and in some cases breaking, the law, resulting in numerous controversies.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. ATF is a federal law enforcement and regulatory agency with a substantial history in the federal government dating back to the tax-collecting bureaucracy of the s. Historically, the agency has struggled to maintain a balance between its law enforcement duties and its mandate to collect taxes.
Accordingly, the new ATF mission aims more at preventing violent crime involving firearms and engaging in other anti-criminal activities. The agency is responsible for investigating and preventing crimes involving the unlawful use, manufacture and possession of firearms and explosives, arson and bombings and illegal trafficking or manufacture of alcohol and tobacco products.
Drug Enforcement Administration. DEA is the leading law enforcement operation in the country for combating the sale and distribution of narcotics and other illegal drugs.
DEA enforces federal anti-drug laws, such as the Controlled Substances Act, which pertain to the manufacture, distribution and dispensing of legally produced controlled substances. DEA investigates major violators of controlled substance laws operating at interstate and international levels.
Major violators include criminals and drug gangs, both in the US and in foreign countries. As part of its national drug intelligence program, DEA works with federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement officials to collect, analyze and disseminate strategic and operational drug intelligence information. DEA also works with other law enforcement operations through non-enforcement methods such as crop eradication, crop substitution and training of foreign officials.
In addition, its effectiveness in curtailing the use of illegal drugs has been questioned. Office of Justice Programs.
OJP is the main administrative body that manages many Justice Department programs and initiatives focusing on crime prevention. These programs provide economic, technological and research assistance to state and local governments, law enforcement programs and criminal justice agencies. OJP oversees 13 bureaus and offices, as well as 21 initiatives that focus on many program areas including Bureau of Justice Assistance; Bureau of Justice Statistics; Community Capacity Development Office; National Institute of Justice; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; Office for Victims of Crime; Office for Civil Rights; Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking; as well as programs covering corrections, courts, juvenile justice, law enforcement, research, statistics and evaluation, substance abuse and crime, technology to fight crime, terrorism and domestic preparedness and victims of crime.
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. COPS promotes a community-based approach to law enforcement that encourages preventing crime rather than responding once crime has been committed. Created during the Clinton administration in response to a series of violent crime incidents throughout the country, COPS aims to improve public safety by addressing both the roots of crime and the culture of fear created by it which helps perpetuate criminal activity.
The concept of acting locally and addressing the roots of crime is carried out by community policing officers who work within their own communities to develop relationships and build trust with community members. COPS provides funding and training for community policing programs. Federal Bureau of Prisons.
BOP is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the bureau oversees prisons, six regional offices, two staff training centers and 28 community corrections offices.
The bureau is also responsible for carrying out all legally mandated federal executions, and it maintains a lethal injections center in Terre Haute, Indiana, where, in , Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh was the first federal prisoner to be executed in almost 40 years. In addition to its use of capital punishment, BOP has been subject to criticism over budget and program cuts, privatization and agency contracting practices. Office of the Federal Detention Trustee.
OFDT is in charge of seeing that detained persons are provided safe, secure and humane confinement in the most cost-effective manner, and that they appear when required for judicial proceedings or confinement.
In addition, it monitors facilities to make sure their performance level is up to agreed standards; develops and implements strategies to deal with potential detention crises; negotiates and awards contracts in support of operational needs; and formulates recommendations and projections on population trends, bed space availability, and costs of state and local government, versus private facilities.
US Parole Commission. A much larger commission at one time, the USPC has seen its role shrink and its very existence threatened over the past 20 years following a landmark change in sentencing laws in the s. United States Attorneys. Ninety-three attorneys are stationed throughout the US, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, representing the chief federal law enforcement officer within their jurisdiction.
US Attorneys are all appointed by the President for four-year terms, and thus they serve at his pleasure. In , the US Attorneys became the focal point of the one of the biggest controversies of the Bush administration when it was revealed that several prosecutors were allegedly fired for political reasons. The scandal resulted in the resignation of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Office of the Solicitor General. The solicitor general also decides when the United States should appeal a case it has lost in lower federal and state courts, when it should file a brief amicus curiae and when the United States should intervene to defend the constitutionality of an act of Congress.
Attorneys located throughout the United States. The United States Attorneys are statutorily responsible for the prosecution of criminal cases brought on behalf of the United States, the prosecution and defense of civil cases when the United States is a party, and the collection of debts owed to the federal government in certain instances.
Each U. There are also groups within the DOJ with expertise to handle specialized matters. These groups act as collegial bodies and exercises quasi-judicial powers affecting the entry and stay of foreign nationals in the country. The main objective of the National Bureau of Investigation is the establishment and maintenance of a modern, effective and efficient investigative service and research agency for the purpose of implementing fully principal functions provided under Republic Act No.
The Parole and Probation Administration PPA provides a less costly alternative to imprisonment of offenders who are likely to respond to individualized community based treatment programs. The Presidential Commission on Good Government shall be charged with the task of assisting the President in the recovery of ill-gotten wealth accumulated by former President Ferdinand E.
These include the Office of Legislative Affairs, which coordinates the DOJ's relationship with Congress; the Office of Legal Counsel, which helps the attorney general to furnish legal advice to the president; the U. Parole Commission, which administers the parole system for federal prisoners; the Executive Office for U.
The bureau, which was established in , is responsible for the collection and analysis of criminal justice statistics at the state and federal level.
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