The call-up of prosecutors for military duty continues. In Chelan County Washington, Stephen Funderburk, a deputy prosecuting attorney, has gone on active duty as an army JAG officer at Fort Lewis in that state. Spokane County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Larry Haskell and legal assistant Noel Lopez are also serving in the army. In Indiana, Knox County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Hal Johnson, a National Guard officer, is headed for Afghanistan after 45 days of training at Camp Atterbury, IN.
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| All in the Family—There is one Maher family in South Dakota that includes a defense attorney, two prosecutors, and a law firm manager. Thomas P. Maher, seated, is state’s attorney for South Dakota’s Stanley County, which includes the state capital, Pierre; and his brother Timothy Maher, is deputy state’s attorney of Hughes County, which is across the Missouri River from Tom Maher’s jurisdiction. Their father, Thomas M. Maher, is a prominent South Dakota defense attorney. Their mother, Peggy, manages her husband’s law office. (Photo by Mary Gales Askren, courtesy of the Capital Journal, Pierre, SD.) |
What does a prosecutor do if he is also a gospel preacher and has to seek the death penalty? According to an Associated Press story, this can be an issue in the rural South where preachers often hold secular jobs during the week. Prosecutor/preacher Stewart Schneider, commonwealth’s attorney in Kentucky’s 32d Judicial Circuit (Catlettsburg), has no problem in sending people to prison, but when he was faced with a murder case in which he would have to argue for the death penalty, he turned the case over to a prosecutor in a neighboring county. On the other hand, George W. Moore, a Presbyterian pastor and commonwealth’s attorney in the 21st Judicial Circuit (Mount Sterling), says he has come to terms with his support for the death penalty, declaring, “While I probably agree it would be a better world if we didn’t have to have the death penalty, I am comfortable with the fact that this is the law.” Barbara Maines Whaley, an ordained United Methodist minister who has put her church ministry on hold while serving as special prosecutor in the Kentucky attorney general’s office, believes that prosecutors should not feel that they carry the entire burden in a death penalty case. She told AP: “I don’t believe a prosecutor has any more of a significant role in a capital murder case than any other participant, beginning with law enforcement officers, jury, defense attorney, the judge and the witnesses. The prosecutor is a public servant carrying out her role in upholding the law.”
Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Carlin Jude (Spokane County Washington) has been awarded the 12th annual Myra Bradwell Award by the Gonzaga University School of Law Women’s Law Caucus. The award honors a graduate who has advocated women’s issues in the law, legal profession or community. Jude joined the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office after 10 years as a crime prevention specialist with the Spokane Police Department. She currently supervises the Property and Fraud Unit in the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Joshua Marquis, DA of Clatsop County, Oregon, and an NDAA board member, has been named “2003 Prosecutor of the Year” by Oregon’s State DUII MDT Task Force for his work on several pieces of DUII legislation, particularly a law that requires drunk drivers to plead guilty in order to qualify for participation in a diversion program.
Rich Melnick, a long-time deputy in the Clark County (Washington) prosecuting attorney’s office, was appointed to a judgeship in the Clark County District Court.
Alex Gardner has been appointed district attorney for Lane County, Oregon, by Governor Kulongoski. He succeeds F. Douglass Harcleroad, who resigned, and will serve for the remainder of Harcleroad’s unexpired term.
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| Mike Flynn, district attorney general of Tennessee’s Fifth Judical District, and his wife Vickie have exchanged many gifts during their 22 years of marriage, but none as precious as the gift Mike gave Vickie on June 23. It was literally the gift of life—one of Mike’s kidneys. Mike Flynn and his wife Vickie shortly before the transplant surgery. (Photo by Daryl Sullivan courtesy of The Daily Times of Maryville, Tennessee.) |
Officials of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service wanted a team of prosecution experts to back up federal security forces at the G-8 summit meeting of leaders of the world’s industrialized nations at Sea Island, Georgia, earlier this year. They called Chuck Olson, general counsel of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia (PACOG). He has worked with the feds in similar high-level security situations, including the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He also helped prosecutors prepare for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Chuck Olson served as coordinator and chief planner of legal support for the summit and Richard A. (Rick) Malone, executive director of PACOG, was co-chair of the legal subcommittee. “We had to look at all aspects of this national security special event,” Olson says, “which meant dealing not only with the protection and security situation, but also with such issues as First Amendment rights, civil disturbances, freedom of travel, access to public places, permit ordinances, and diplomatic and head-of-state immunity.” Whether or not the G-8 summit was a success is for the historians to say, but as far as Chuck Olson’s operation, he proclaimed it “an absolute success,” declaring, “We had the right manpower at the right place to make sure that police could get timely advice from people who were well trained on the issues.”
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