HOWARD UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF LAW
SPEAKER: THE HONORABLE JANET RENO, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL
Monday, November 25, 1996
Moot Courtroom
Houston Hall
School of Law
Howard University
2900 Van Ness Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
P R O C E E D I N G S
(12:14 p.m.)
MS. RENO: Thank you so much, Loretta, President
Swygert, Dean Bullock. It's a great privilege to be here
today.
I love law students because you ask wonderful
questions -- better than newspaper reporters -- so be
thinking about questions.
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: And I love the law and I love
lawyers, but I don't like greedy and indifferent lawyers.
The law can be such a marvelous tool for good. It is a
marvelous tool for change. You can use the law to solve
problems, to serve people, and to bring peace.
So, as you contemplate your future career, don't
become known for the law firm that you join, don't become
known for the money that you make or the house that you
live in, but become known for yourself and for who you are
and for what you stand for and for what you do for others.
Speak out against the hatred, the bigotry, the
violence in this land. Defend those who are victims of
these forces. Most haters are cowards. When you stand up
to them, they back down and we need to stand up.
Don't stand on the sidelines, whether you become
a great corporate lawyer or practice in a small, rural
community, but instead defend and protect the rights that
you've studied about for three years, that you've cared
about for longer than that.
These rights and freedoms do not find lasting
strength on a piece of paper, and that's what I've learned
again and again. They are not self-executing. They find
their force in the hearts and in the minds and in the
spirit of lawyers who are willing to fight for them, who
are willing to spend the hours going over a case to find
the facts that can achieve justice. Advocate for them and
never, ever give up fighting for them.
Sometimes these efforts are not expressed in
highfaluting arguments, highfaluting constitutional
arguments. Sometimes I think lawyers think they're going
to stand in front of the court and make the most
persuasive argument possible. But oftentimes they're
found in very tedious, very factual studies of the issues.
Recently I had occasion to review a number of
DNA cases where DNA had been used to prove a person who
had been wrongfully convicted innocent. In one instance,
a man had been convicted and sentenced to death for the
murder of a young woman in 1984. He maintained his
innocence but he was convicted. Two years later his
conviction was overturned. After a second trial, he was
again convicted and this time he was sentenced to life in
prison.
But in 1989 a new lawyer, one who would not give
up, took on what seemed to be a hopeless case. He
realized at that point that forensic science had made
advancement with DNA technology. He filed a motion to
preserve the evidence so that tests could be done. The
prosecutor's office responded appropriately, cooperated,
and agreed to the test. Experts at the lab concluded that
the samples in question could not have come from this
person and he was not the person who did it. The state
withdrew the charges and because a lawyer never gave up
fighting for what was right, a man was free.
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: Now, you hear about these cases and
you read about these cases, but you think that's never
going to happen to me. I'm never going to be responsible
for an innocent man walking out of the courtroom, but it
happened to me about eight years ago.
I was the chief prosecutor in Miami, Florida,
and the governor of Florida appointed me as a special
prosecutor for a county in another part of the state to go
reinvestigate the case of a man who had been prosecuted,
convicted, and sentenced to death for the poisoning death
of his seven children in 1968. He had always maintained
his innocence, but he had spent all that time in prison as
the Supreme Court had set aside the death penalty.
For as long as I live, I will always remember
standing up in that courtroom looking over at that man,
after we had presented the evidence to the court, and
telling the court that I as the prosecutor specially
appointed thought that man should go free because the
evidence was insufficient to charge him originally, it was
clearly insufficient now, he was probably innocent. And
when I turned around after I had left that courthouse and
watched that man walk out, there has never been a more
wonderfully moving moment for me, a more rewarding moment
for me in all my professional career. Just never, ever
give up.
We are a government of the people and by the
people and for the people. And the people in this nation
for 200 years have created a government that has provided
more freedom and more opportunity than any government in
the history of this world. But it's not perfect.
Despite that, there are some Americans who sit
on the sidelines and snipe and carp at government. They
don't participate. They wring their hands. They say it's
somebody else's problem. But if our form of government is
to prevail and to improve, then the very best people, the
very best lawyers, must take part in it and contribute to
it positively.
I think public service is one of the most
rewarding callings that anybody could ever have. I've
been in private practice. I've been a partner in a major
Miami law firm. I've worked for the legislature, and none
of my experiences in the private sector can match the
reward I have felt in public service. Yes, you get cussed
at, fussed at, and beat up in the newspapers. You
undertake a new initiative that you think can really make
a difference, and then you get knocked down. But you pick
yourself up and you keep moving.
I collected child support in Miami as the State
Attorney. It was a very difficult task. We tried to get
the system automated. We tried to improve the process. I
kept my home phone number listed, and on a Sunday night
women would call me and say, you haven't gotten me my
child support and I'm about to be thrown out on my ear
with my child. And then they'd call back the next day and
say, it just came. Thank you.
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: But all of that hassle was worth it
when I accompanied President Clinton to Greenville, South
Carolina, to the dedication of a church that had been
built following the arson destruction of a beautiful, old
church under an oak tree. We came down the little dirt
road past where the old church had been to the new,
beautiful church. It was a wonderfully moving day.
But after the President had finished speaking, I
walked off the platform, and a lady said, Janet, and she
busted through the rope line and gave me a big hug. She
said, I'm from Miami. I moved up here after Hurricane
Andrew, and I always used to see you in the Martin Luther
King parade marching with your mother, and remember how
they used to yell "child support" after you because you
were so good at getting us child support.
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: And she says, I want you to see what
you did, and she pulled two young men over who towered
above her and me and she said, you got them child support
and they have done well for themselves.
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: So, I hope you will pursue public
service because there is nothing as rewarding, despite
all the criticism.
But public service is not confined to government
service. Public service can be performed by people in
their communities. I was delighted, as I prepared for my
remarks today, to learn of what you all are doing in
public service, in mentoring, in adopting schools, in
making a difference. Every single one of us can make a
difference. I don't care who we are.
One of my favorite stories was of an old
gentleman who stood up in a meeting one day and he said,
do you know how old I am and what I do three mornings a
week for three hours each morning? I said, no, sir. He
said, I volunteer as a teacher's aide in a public school,
and he says, I'm 84 years old.
A lady stood up next to him, a young woman, and
she said, I don't know what I would do without him. I'm
the first grade teacher for whom he volunteers. And the
gifted kids can't wait for their time with him because he
challenges them far beyond the time I have to work with
them, and the kids with learning disabilities can't wait
for their time with him because he has the patience of
Job. It was so incredible to listen to that teacher and
to see the difference that 84-year-old man could make in
the life of those first-graders. Every one of us can make
a difference.
It's easy to be a cynic in this day and time.
The cynic knows so much about what is wrong and why it
can't be fixed. I urge you, as you study law and as you
leave this great law school, to go out and make sure that
the cynics don't prevail in this land. Believe in your
capacity to make a difference. Be idealistic. It's a
good thing to do.
I don't mean for a moment that you should be
naive. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about
the need for all of us to have a tough mind and a tender
heart. I can tell you that no one can come to Washington
and ever hope to do well if they don't start the morning
by asking tough questions and end the day getting the real
answers, not the spin answers.
We were founded by idealists with tough minds
and with tender hearts, and they formed a government to
check the worst in human nature, just as they risked their
lives to found a country that has cherished freedom and
liberty over repression. They took the hard way and they
made a difference.
I watch wonderfully dedicated lawyers throughout
this country in the service of their government, in their
communities reaching out in so many different ways to make
a difference.
As you use the law to dispel cynicism in this
world, use it to solve problems, to avoid conflicts, and
to improve circumstances. Many of us -- me -- I used to
-- thought that the great trial lawyer was the really
great person in the world. They solved all the problems,
but I've come to learn, as I grow old, that most of the
great issues of the law, most of the great issues of the
day are resolved on a daily basis not by lawyers in the
courtroom, not by lawyers in argument, but by lawyers who
know how to negotiate and to resolve issues for the mutual
benefit of all concerned.
Dean Bullock, I was delighted to know of all the
work that Howard Law School is doing in dispute
resolution, in teaching negotiation.
There is a new phenomenon moving out across this
country. Lawyers are learning how to negotiate rather
than to try cases and waste dollars. School children are
learning how to resolve their disputes without knives and
guns and fists. Employers are learning how to resolve
employer/employee disputes. It is happening and I would
urge you to use the skills you can develop in this law
school and to apply them as you go out into practice
thinking how do I solve this problem.
I saw it most clearly as a prosecutor. It used
to frustrate me when I saw the prosecutor get a
conviction, see the person sentenced to jail, know the
person had a drug problem, and know that prison didn't
have any drug treatment programs, and think, wait a
minute, we're not solving this problem. And the public
defender would feel like he had won a great victory when
he got the defendant off on a motion to dismiss, and yet
he knew that defendant was walking out of that courtroom
in the grips of a crack addiction that was worse than any
prison. And nobody was doing anything about solving the
problem.
We tried to develop a drug court that would
provide a carrot and stick approach that said, look, you
can go for treatment. We'll work with you. We'll work
with you in job training and placement. We'll get you
placed. We'll provide support. Or you can suffer the
consequences. And it has been an effective program.
But look at how the problem should be solved,
not who's going to win the battle in the courtroom.
But as wonderful as the law is, too many
Americans do not have access to the law. If we are to
make the law the instrument it truly can be, we must make
the law real for all Americans. According to the American
Bar Association, 80 percent of the poor and the working
poor of this country are estimated not to have access to
lawyers or to the courtroom. For that group of people in
America, the law is worth little more than the paper it's
written on. We must devise new means to give people the
opportunity to believe in the law and to make it real for
all Americans.
What you have done in this law school in terms
of developing a spirit that supports pro bono service is
again so critically important.
But as you graduate from this law school, as you
go to the community where you will have chosen to
practice, figure out what you can do to give more people
access to the law. Stand up for a legal services program.
When you finally find a law firm that's going to hire
you --
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: -- ask them what they do in terms of
supporting pro bono services, and if they say nothing, go
down to the next law firm. It will be worth it to you,
although I know how important a job is.
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: But one of the reasons people don't
feel like they have access to the law is that the law is
so complicated. Lawyers can use more legalese, more big
words, more labels to confuse the issue than any group of
people I've ever seen, even almost doctors.
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: Learn to use small, old words. You
can explain it in small words without using these big
legal languages. Explain to your clients what the problem
was so that they can avoid it for the future. Get rid of
the slogans. Get rid of the Roman numerals and talk about
the law in the way that people can understand.
But if we are to make the law real for all
Americans, we have got to focus as a nation, as law
students, as Attorney General on the most under-represented group of Americans and our most precious
possession, our children.
As the prosecutor in Miami, I used to focus on
our juvenile division because I wanted to do everything I
could to give delinquents an opportunity to get off on a
fresh footing. I would pick up the presentence
investigation, and as I read the presentence investigation
of a 17-year-old that we had just gotten adjudicated an
armed robber, I could see five points along the way where
we could have intervened in that child's life to have made
a difference, to give him a strong and positive future,
and to avoid the tragedy of the crime both to the
defendant, the victim, and the community. So, we
developed a dropout prevention program because we saw a
direct correlation between dropouts and delinquency.
But then I realized if we wait until the child
is in the sixth grade, he's already falling behind a grade
level and beginning to act out for other reasons to
attract attention to himself. We had to start earlier.
We developed an early intervention program surrounding
Head Start.
But at that point the crack epidemic hit in
Miami in 1985 and the doctors took me to our public
hospital to try to figure out what to do about crack-involved infants and their mothers. They taught me that
the first three years of life are the most formative, that
during those three years, the concept of reward and
punishment and a conscious is developed, that 50 percent
of all learned human response is learned in the first year
of life. And I said to myself, what good will all the
prisons do 18 years from now if you don't teach the child
the difference between right and wrong and help them
develop a conscious? What good are all the educational
opportunities 15 years from now if they don't receive the
basic foundation up front?
And then they took me to the nursery, and you
could begin to see the difference. Nobody was prepared
for this epidemic. There were crack-involved babies that
could not be sent home. There was no place else to send
them. People were scrambling to arrange for foster care,
and some of these babies had not been held or talked to
except when changed and fed. After six weeks, they were
not beginning to respond with human emotion. But across
the way, there would be a child with severe birth defects
but with parents with her around the clock and she was
beginning to respond through the tubes and through her
crippling effects with human emotions.
We have got to start at the beginning, and
whether we be the great corporate lawyer, the child
advocate, the juvenile court judge, the Attorney General,
the Howard law student, we have all got to figure out how
we can reweave the fabric of community around children and
families at risk and ensure for them true access to the
law. We've got to go back to our communities and see what
we can do to make a difference.
I'm so pleased at the fact that you're
volunteering and that you've adopted some schools, as I
understand it, because when I came to Washington, I
thought I'm leaving my home. It seems so strange. I'm
going to have to get used to a new community, and Eleanor
Holmes Norton almost immediately said, I've got the school
for you to adopt. You can adopt Raymond Elementary. So,
I go out there as regularly as I can and it has been a
wonderfully rewarding experience.
Again, all of us can make a difference, but we
have to look at the whole picture rather than to become
too specialized. We've got to make sure that parents know
how to be good parents. We've got to make sure that it's
as important in this nation to collect child support as it
is to collect income tax and that we do as good a job of
the one as the other.
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: We've got to make sure that our
children have proper preventative medical care. Something
is wrong with the nation that says to a person who's 70
years old, with Medicare you can get an operation that
will extend your life expectancy by three years, and yet
we turn to the child of a working poor person and say, you
can't get preventative medical care because your father
makes too much money to be eligible for Medicaid and he
doesn't have insurance. We have got to give that child a
chance to grow in a strong and healthy way.
Now, you're going to have to learn how to be
persuasive because some people will be saying, you're just
being goody two shoes. Say that for every dollar invested
in prenatal care, you save $3 down the line. For every
dollar invested in preventative medical care for our young
people, you're going go be saving millions of dollars in
tertiary complicated care that has to come after the
crisis has occurred.
Let us focus on educare. Times have changed in
this nation and yet we haven't kept up with it. If those
first three years of life are so important and yet both
parents or single parents are having to work, we've got to
make sure that there's safe, constructive educare for all
our children in our law firms, in our businesses, in our
universities. We've got to ensure that our children are
supervised.
But then we've got to focus on our educational
system. Just think of the challenges in this day and
time. Probably the greatest burst of human knowledge in
the last 100 years -- and our schools are trying to keep
up with it, but there's something wrong with a nation that
pays its football players in the six-digit figures and
pays its school teachers what we pay them. We've got to
change it.
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: But school is fine, but there are too
many children in the second, the third, and the fourth
grade walking out of the school, walking home to an
unsupervised home because both parents or a single parent
is working to try to make ends meet and to give that child
a future. We've got to develop more constructive programs
after school and in the evening. Each one of us can make
a difference on that score, whether it be the community
police officer, the Howard University law student serving
as a mentor. Each one of us can make a difference.
There is so much that we can do if we just look
at the problem in a common sense way and work together.
Children are so tough. They can survive almost anything
if they're given half a fighting chance. I think the
great challenge for this nation in these next years is to
give our children their rights, give them half a fighting
chance and they will do so well.
But in the process of doing that, you've got to
remember the most important possession you will ever have:
your family, whether it be your parents, your children, a
loved one. I remember my afternoons after school and in
the evening. My mother worked in the home. My father
worked downtown. My mother taught us how to play
baseball, to appreciate Beethoven's symphony, to bake
sponge cake. She taught us how to play fair. She
punished us, sometimes too fiercely.
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: And she loved us with all her heart.
There is no child care in the world that will ever be the
substitute for what that lady was in our lives.
Yet, I watch the young lawyers in the Department
of Justice or at my office at home struggle to get
breakfast on the table, the children dressed and off to
school. They try a case all day. They interview
witnesses up till 7 o'clock. They get home, get dinner on
the table, the children bathed, the homework done. They
run errands on Saturdays, go to church on Sunday, start
preparing for trial Sunday night, and the time vanishes.
They're going to be grown before you know it.
When you go to the law firm looking for the job,
when you go to the Department of Justice, ask the place
you're seeking a job, what do you do about families? What
do you do about flex time? What do you do about maternal
and paternal leave? What do you do to put families first
in your law firm?
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: Getting James Joseph Richardson set
free was professionally probably the most rewarding thing
I've ever done, but one of the most rewarding things I've
done otherwise is to become the legal guardian of 15-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. The girl was in love and
I've learned an awful lot about raising children in the
last 12 years. It takes hard work, love, and an awful lot
of luck, but when I put that young lady on the plane to
send her to college and when I went to see her graduate
three years hence cum laude and on each occasion she threw
her arms around my neck and said, thank you, I couldn't
have done it without you, that's as rewarding as anything
else.
As you enjoy the great and wonderful benefits of
this law school, as you prepare for a career in the law,
always remember, put your family first. Put first the
people you love.
Thank you.
(Applause.)
QUESTION: What are the goals that you plan to
accomplish after you leave the Office of Attorney General?
And my second question is, what do you think we
can do individually as law students and as future lawyers
and as the profession as a whole to improve the image of
lawyers?
MS. RENO: I take each day a day at a time. I'm
like Scarlet O'Hara, and when I have to think of what else
I'm going to do, I'll think about that tomorrow.
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: My goals generally speaking will be
to continue for the rest of my life to use the law as much
as I possibly can to serve others, to resolve conflicts,
to solve problems, to bring peace, and to end division and
bigotry and hatred.
How will I do that? I swore during law school
that I'd never be a prosecutors because I thought
prosecutors were more interested in securing convictions
than seeking justice. My predecessor, when he offered me
a job, said, you can come do something about that, and I
discovered that prosecutors can best protect the innocent
by not charging them. So, I don't know what I will do for
the rest of my life except to try to use the law the right
way.
Secondly, I think I've outlined some of the
things. I think for a long time when I graduated from law
school in 1963, people were interested. Oh, I've got a
job with a Wall Street law firm. I'm going to be making X
dollars. I'm going to be living in this big house. I met
some of the people that I went to law school with. I
never made near as much money as they did, but they're
envious of the time I've had in public service and my
opportunity to contribute.
Think about the law as a problem solver. Think
about how you help people and not the dollars that you
make is one good way to do it. You can be so much more
effective rather than being an uncivil, boorish lawyer in
the courtroom or in a negotiation setting. You can be far
more effective and get a lot more done by being pleasant,
thoughtful, and reasonable. With those challenges and
knowing what I know about this law school and what you all
are doing, you're going to make a major contribution to
improving the image of the lawyer.
QUESTION: Good afternoon, ma'am.
This summer the Antiterrorism Act that was
passed in Congress included a provision which limited
habeas corpus review to a single year. Do you think that
that's going to affect cases like the one that you talked
about at the beginning of your speech involving people who
are on death row and we have questions about their
conviction, whether or not they were guilty of the crime
that they're charged with?
MS. RENO: It would not affect that particular
case because habeas was not the tool by which we did. It
was a courageous Governor of Florida who appointed me. I
just went back, used the law the right way, used Florida's
procedures the right way. So, it would not have affected
that.
I have concerns about that provision and I want
to work with all concerned to try to do everything I can
to prevent that injustice. One of my colleagues, one of
my former law partners and a person whom I admire a great
deal, Sandy Dalenbert, the past President of the ABA,
engaged in pro bono representation of a person on death
row, and it frightens me. Just the mere thought of a
person who might be innocent going to death is something
that is very important that we -- we know it could happen,
it may have happened, and we have got to do everything we
can to prevent it from happening.
So I have some concerns, but I am hopeful that
the law will be construed to ensure prompt resolution of
cases, but prompt, thorough, and fair resolution of cases,
and provide for the opportunity, should new evidence be
developed, that can ensure that innocent people are
properly protected.
QUESTION: Hello. I wondered whether you think
that looking into the possibility of an Equal Education
Amendment would be a worthwhile and prudent investment of
time?
MS. RENO: I'm sorry. I didn't hear the last
part of your question.
QUESTION: Would be a worthwhile and prudent
investment of our time as researchers.
MS. RENO: How would you describe it? Because
I've heard it described in different ways. How would you
describe an Equal Education Amendment?
QUESTION: How would I describe it? I would
have to spend three years looking into what it would mean.
(Laughter.)
MS. RENO: Here is my concern. I see so many
situations where somebody says, well, we'll get a
constitutional amendment and fix it. Let me give you an
example.
Florida passed a victim's rights amendment, but
they didn't provide the monies to go with the
constitutional amendment. It said that victims shall have
this right, that right, and the other, but it did not add
significantly to prosecutors' staff to provide for witness
counselors and to provide for restitution processes that
could truly enforce it. I think we've got to be very
careful when we talk about amendments and talk about the
resources that have to go behind them to really make the
law mean what it says.
I think the most important thing in education is
giving our teachers the resources they need to do the job,
freeing them up from bureaucratic restraints, honoring
them as some of the most extraordinary people in our
communities, and supporting them in every way we can. So,
I think we're going to have to look at not just
constitutional amendments to ensure equality, but how we
get the resources to all our schools.
QUESTION: Good afternoon, ma'am.
I have two questions. On the Antiterrorist Act
of 1996 as well included a clause that allowed
immigration, INS, officers to block immigrants who are
coming into the United States who may have been convicted
of a crime 20 years ago or any time in the past. It seems
as though the act is being very effective because many
immigrants have been caught into this without knowing that
the law provided for this. I wonder what is your comment
on that and why is that allowed in terms of having the INS
using a discretionary authority under that act to
effectively separate families.
My second question is, what would it take for
your Department to appoint an independent counsel to look
into allegations of the CIA involvement in the crack
issue?
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: That issue arose in a prior
administration, so there would be no basis for an
independent counsel. We are pursuing it through the
Office of the Inspector General to review everything that
the Justice Department might have done during that period
of time to ensure that all the facts are made public and
appropriate judgments are made.
With respect to the immigration issue, I'm not
familiar with -- if you can right afterwards give me some
specifics on how the law might have been abused, let me
know so that I can follow up with Immigration and
Naturalization and find out just what the problem might
be.
QUESTION: California just passed an initiative
that would allow doctors to recommend marijuana for AIDS
patients and cancer patients. I'm wondering, does the
Justice Department plan to prosecute doctors who make
those prescriptions?
MS. RENO: Each case will be taken on its case-by-case basis because doctors can currently prescribe the
ingredients of marijuana that provide for the appropriate
treatment, and the federal law prohibiting it still exists
because no medical group has endorsed it as an appropriate
means of treatment. What we will do is review each case
on a case-by-case basis, look at the evidence, look at the
law, look at the circumstances, and enforce it
accordingly.
QUESTION: In light of the question that my
colleague just asked about the CIA controversy and the
investigation that the office is doing, within your
investigation what aspects are you looking at regarding
the disparity in the sentencing between crack cocaine and
powder cocaine and how it relates to --
(Applause.)
MS. RENO: That review is not part of that case
because that is a totally different issue that applies
generally. The Sentencing Commission is now reviewing the
issue with respect to the disparity between crack and
powder. I asked the U.S. Attorneys, including Eric
Holder, the U.S. Attorney here in the District of
Columbia, to address the issue early on.
Their recommendation was that crack had had a
disparate impact on community after community across this
country and that there should be some disparity, but the
100-to-1 disparity is too great. It is my hope that
everybody involved, the administration, the executive
branch, Congress, and the Sentencing Commission, will work
together to resolve just what disparity should exist
considering the impact on the community.
With respect to any form of sentencing
differential or disparate treatment, I constantly through
our work with the U.S. Attorneys across the country try to
review any pattern that might indicate that there is
disparate treatment and try to take action to ensure
against it.
One of the things that I've tried to do is to
make sure that we use the federal resources the right way
to go after the truly dangerous offenders, the major
traffickers, to handle the cases that will have a real
impact on stemming crime. And we continue to review all
the facts that we can pull together to ensure that there
is no disparate treatment based on race.
(Standing ovation.)
(Whereupon, at 12:53 p.m., the speech was
concluded.)