On page 16 of this issue you will find an article about the National Advocacy Center where NDAA has offered training for state and local prosecutors for the past four years. In the years to come, this magnificent facility for training America’s local prosecutors undoubtedly will be taken for granted, as it becomes a familiar place for the thousands of prosecutors who will pass through its lecture halls and model courtrooms. So in this space, for the edification of newer members of this association and as a reminder for some of us who were there at or shortly after the creation, I’d like to recount how all this came to pass.
It wasn’t easy, particularly since a new concept was at issue: a partnership between NDAA and the U.S. Department of Justice for training prosecutors at all levels, federal, state and local. As those who were involved in the years of discussions, negotiations and planning know only too well, there were many fits and starts and bends in the road before agreement was reached.
The original concept, conceived at DOJ around 1990, was for a national advocacy center for the training of only U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys. Senator Ernest (Fritz) Hollings (D-SC), who was then chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was enthusiastic about the idea and wanted to have the facility located in his home state, possibly on the campus of the University of South Carolina at Columbia. But Senator Hollings believed that local prosecutors should also be trained at such a center, so as he marshaled support for the center and arranged for an initial appropriation, he asked DOJ to explore the concept of including the separate training of local prosecutors in the facility under a partnership arrangement.
In mid-1991, Jack Yelverton, my immediate predecessor as executive director, notified Tom Charron, the incoming NDAA president, that Bill Barr, then-deputy U.S. attorney general under AG Dick Thornburgh, had called him to discuss the NDAA-DOJ training partnership idea. A number of discussions followed and in late fall 1991, DOJ formally asked NDAA to submit a concept paper outlining specifically how NDAA envisioned its training needs (what type of training NDAA had in mind, how many prosecutors could be trained, how many courses would be presented and what level and type of staffing would be required). Under a tight deadline, NDAA enlisted the help of the National College of District Attorneys (NCDA) in writing the concept paper, which was submitted to DOJ in December 1991 and incorporated into the proposal that DOJ submitted to Congress.
During this period Dick Thornburgh resigned as attorney general and was succeeded by Bill Barr, who continued working with NDAA on the joint training center concept. After Congress approved the proposal, largely through Senator Hollings’s efforts, the pace accelerated and the National Advocacy Center began moving from the concept stage toward the drawing board, architects’ plans and construction on the campus of the University of South Carolina.
The project became a prime responsibility of Tom Charron’s successors in the NDAA presidency: Bob Macy (1992-93), Bill O’Malley (1993-94), Dusty Deschamps (1994-95), Mike Barnes (1995-96), John Kaye (1996-97) and Bill Murphy (1997-98). Mike Barnes signed the memorandum of understanding with then-Attorney General Janet Reno, formalizing the partnership with DOJ, and the groundbreaking ceremony took place shortly thereafter.
During this period, Dick DeHaan, who was assigned to DOJ’s Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, was named DOJ’s project manager for the construction phase and took on the arduous, painstaking and sometimes frustrating task of monitoring the project on the site from the groundbreaking to completion and dedication. He did a remarkable job and now has an office in the center as a member of the NDAA staff there.
The beautiful double-winged building was completed in the spring of 1998 and NDAA presented its first course, Train the Trainers, at the National Advocacy Center on May 4. The official dedication took place June 1, 1998, with Senator Hollings; then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno; Dr. John M. Palms, president of the University of South Carolina; and Bill Murphy, then-NDAA president, participating.
Tom Charron recalls several ironic twists during the process. When he, as president of NDAA and acting head of operations at NDAA during the absence of an executive director, was asking NCDA to help with the writing of the concept paper, I was chair of the college’s Board of Regents. Within a year we had switched hats. I had been appointed executive director of NDAA and Tom Charron became chair of the college’s Board of Regents. And the final twist of fate was that Tom, during whose NDAA presidency the concept of training at the National Advocacy Center was drawn up, wound up becoming NDAA’s director of education at the center.
