About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

46 U.S. Att'ys Bull. [i] (1998)

handle is hein.journals/usab46 and id is 1 raw text is: 








From the Editor-in-Chief


B y profession   we are a group of strong minded individuals. As AUSAs we're advocates. We have to be strong minded.
     As we  fight the daily battles on behalf of the government and of crime victims, oftentimes the last thing we want to
hear from Washington is that we're not seeing the big picture. A silent scream reverberates within us-why don't they come
out here and experience the real picture?
        This special issue of the United States Attorneys'Bulletin is dedicated to one who always kept both pictures on her
radarscope-our outgoing Director of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys, Carol DiBattiste. While Carol has
had an incredibly interesting professional career, the prior job experience most important to her tenure at EOUSA is that
she was an AUSA  in Miami and she has chosen to end her tenure as Director of EOUSA to again become an AUSA in
Miami. As this issues goes to press, she is already hard at work at her new job as Deputy United States Attorney for the
Southern District of Florida.
        When  former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick asked Carol to become the Director of EOUSA in 1994,
no one could have predicted the changes Carol's energy would produce in three short years. In this case, Rome was built,
torn down, and rebuilt in a day. From the beginning, Carol knew that to make the organization more efficient, more
functional, and of more use to United States Attorneys' offices, she would need the combined wisdom of the veterans at
EOUSA   and the national AUSA community.  She sought the guidance and ideas of AUSAs who were battling in the
trenches. As she made us part of the team, she required us to take on a new perspective-to view the implementation of our
ideas from a national viewpoint.
        Although there was never an empty minute in her 14 plus hour days, she always found a way to make time to hear
any and every AUSA  idea. As she patiently listened to each new suggestion, you could literally watch her mind at work as
the questions formed silently and then were delivered rapid fire. Will this plan benefit and serve the mission of United
States Attorneys? How does it impact other DOJ initiatives? Is it duplicated elsewhere? Is it cost efficient? Do we have the
right people to implement the plan and to make it work? Can we implement this national program by the close of business
today? Oh, yes-she challenged you to produce all you could produce. My own experience is typical of this process. I was
frustrated by the fact that we couldn't put our hands on good DOJ research materials. I suggested that OLE might devote
some  of its resources to the production of a high-quality series of law books written by Federal prosecutors for Federal
prosecutors. I received a call from Carol telling me to come to Washington immediately to discuss this proposal. When I
got there, she wanted to know when I could start producing these books! But the OLE Litigation Series was only to be the
tip of the iceberg. Next she wanted me to take over the United States Attorneys'Bulletin. Then I made the mistake of
telling her I thought Ed Hagen and I could engineer a rewrite of the USAM and that we could shorten it to one volume.
Carol got everybody motivated for the USAM project. Helen Fahey, Ken Melson, Judy Beeman, Regina Barrett, Charysse
Alexander, Jennifer Bolen, and over one hundred writers from EOUSA and every other Division in the Department were
mobilized by Carol's energy and desire to generate a policy manual that would be available to every AUSA via computer.
        What  she did with our publications was just one small example of what she did with everybody's ideas. From the
establishment of a national Brady/Giglio policy, to the new improved EARS program, to the rapid response to the field on
all issues, the urgent reports, the improvement of the LECC victim witness program, the development of a standardized
threat assessment program, the improvement of the FOIA effort, the development of the National Advocacy Center, and a
host of others, Carol left her mark on all of us. She sought our best ideas and supported, pushed, and implemented them.
This was empowerment  in its truest form. Somerset Maugham said that it is a funny thing about life-if you refuse to accept
anything but the best you very often get it. Carol cannot conceive of accepting anything less from anyone but as hard as she
pushed others, she drove herself even harder.
        Through  the delivery of finished products, something else occurred at the Department. EOUSA's importance as a
component  within the Department grew. When the Attorney General gave EOUSA a project, Carol saw to it that a high-
quality product was delivered in a timely manner. As a consequence, AUSAs were given the opportunity to participate in
many  of the Department's most important investigations. Whether it was the Oklahoma City bombing, the UNabomber, or
other large-scale investigations, AUSAs were given the chance to serve and lead.
        The role of the AGAC within the Department also increased in importance with many United States Attorneys
making significant contributions on the national level. She sat in on every meeting and made sure that every AGAC
subcommittee had AUSA   participation. She collected the views of the United States Attorneys on key legislative proposals
affecting the Department of Justice. And no question posed by the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General went

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most