NAFUSA Update
December 2015


NAFUSA Update is published monthly. NAFUSA's website can be accessed directly from this newsletter. New articles are posted to the website during the month.  You may also subscribe to NAFUSA email updates, delivered to your inbox overnight, the day after any new items are posted. (Be sure to complete the two step process.) You can also follow NAFUSA on Twitter (@NAFUSAorg).
  
Jeff Taylor Joins GM

Jeff Taylor
Jeff Taylor
General Motors Co. announced on October 20, 2015, that NAFUSA member and former member of NAFUSA's board Jeffrey A. Taylor is joining the company effective November 1 as Deputy General Counsel for Federal Oversight. He will report to Craig Gladden, executive vice president and general counsel.

Taylor, 50, has most recently served as vice president and general counsel of Tewksbury, Mass.-based Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. Before that, he led a team of more than 300 professionals as chief executive of Ernst & Young's Fraud Investigation and Dispute Services practice in the Americas.

He served in the United States Department of Justice for 15 years as an assistant U.S. attorney, senior advisor to Attorneys General John D. Ashcroft and Alberto R. Gonzales, and as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2006 to 2009.

Among Taylor's duties, he will work with the federal monitor who will be appointed as part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement GM has entered into with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. The monitor will review and assess the company's policies and procedures in certain discrete areas relating to safety issues and recalls.

"Jeff is a highly accomplished attorney who has managed extremely complex legal issues and his appointment demonstrates how seriously we take our commitment to the federal government and our customers to build the best safety organization in the industry," Glidden said.

Taylor earned his juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School. He earned a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford University.

General Motors Co. (NYSE:GM, TSX: GMM) and its partners produce vehicles in 30 countries, and the company has leadership positions in the world's largest and fastest-growing automotive markets. GM, its subsidiaries and joint venture entities sell vehicles under the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Baojun, Buick, GMC, Holden, Jiefang, Opel, Vauxhall and Wuling brands. More information on the company and its subsidiaries, including OnStar, a global leader in vehicle safety, security and information services, can be found at http://www.gm.com.

 
Letten Joins Butler Snow
 

Jim Letten
Jim Letten
Butler Snow announced on November 23, 2015, that NAFUSA member Jim Letten - a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana (2001-2012) currently serving as an assistant dean of experiential learning at the Tulane University Law School - has joined the firm as of counsel in the New Orleans office. He will bolster the firm's team of other former federal prosecutors, and expand its office in the Crescent City.

Letten was appointed U.S. Attorney by President George W. Bush and asked to retain the position by President Barack Obama. Prior to stepping down in 2012, he had been the longest-serving U.S. Attorney in the nation and one of only three U.S. Attorneys in the country appointed to the position by successive presidents from different parties. Letten will work with the firm's investigations and white collar crimes Group, and consult on a variety of defenses including criminal and regulatory investigations, government audits and civil fraud cases. He will also work on international trade and regulatory issues. Letten will continue in his role as Assistant Dean at Tulane Law School.

"Jim is a respected prosecutor, and had a very successful track record as U.S. Attorney," said Donald Clark, Jr., chairman of Butler Snow. "He is well known across Louisiana, the Southeast and throughout the nation. His leadership in investigations and white collar crime, depth in complex business law matters and prosecution on the state and federal level will add significant value to the firm as we grow in New Orleans and nationwide."

Butler Snow is a full-service law firm with more than 300 attorneys representing local, regional, national and international clients from 17 U.S. offices and an office in London.  For more information, visit www.butlersnow.com.
 

 
Don Davis Joins Springstead Bartish & Borgula 
 
 
Don Davis
NAFUSA's newest member, Don Davis, has joined the Grand Rapids/Fremont firm of Springstead, Bartish & Borgula, P.L.L.C, as of counsel to the Firm. The firm is a small criminal defense firm consisting of two former FBI special agents, an Army JAG officer, a former assistant U.S. attorney (and 2015 NAFUSA Exceptional Service Award recipient) and Davis, who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan from 2008-2012. See www.springsteadbartish.com.

Davis also served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the WD of Michigan, 1975-2008 and 2012-2013. He also served in the United States Marine Corps. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University, B.A., Magna Cum Laude and the University of Michigan Law School.

 
Thompson OpEd on Racism in Jury Selection

Larry Thompson In The New York Times on November 2, 2015, NAFUSA member Larry Thompson (ND Georgia, 1982-1986 and DAG 2001-2003), pubished an OpEd entitled  How America Tolerates Racism in Jury Selection. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in November in Foster v. Chatman, "a case that challenges the all-too-common practice by which prosecutors deliberately exclude African-Americans from criminal juries."

The 1986 case of Batson v. Kentucky was thought to have outlawed this practice, but Thompson argues that prosecutors routinely ignore that decision. Timothy Foster was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Georgia 30 years ago.

Thompson argues,
In at least six different ways, the prosecutors singled out eligible black jurors: Notes from the jury selection list show they marked their names with a "B" and highlighted them in green on four separate copies; circled the word "black" on their juror questionnaires; noted several as "B #1," "B #2"; ranked potential black jurors against one another "in case it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors"; and wrote "Definite NOs" on the list of priority strikes, which had all four possible black jurors.

Although the prosecution has never admitted that race played a role in selecting a jury for Mr. Foster's trial, some of its "race-neutral" reasons for strikes were inaccurate and inconsistent.

For example, prosecutors struck a black juror for being a social worker - but she was a teacher's aide. Meanwhile, prosecutors accepted every white teacher and teacher's aide in the jury pool.

When the prosecutors asked a white juror and a black juror whether the defendant's age, which was close to that of their children, would be a factor in the sentence, the black juror said "none whatsoever" but was struck based on his son's age. The white juror answered "probably so" and was accepted.

Along with other former prosecutors, I joined a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Mr. Foster. We recognize, and refuse to condone, the blatant unconstitutionality of the prosecutorial misconduct in this case. Moreover, my own experience suggests that discrimination in jury selection is indeed a national problem, despite over a century of attempted legislative and judicial remedies.
The Georgia courts have all ruled in the state's favor. But the jury selection notes, discovered by Foster's attorneys through Georgia's open-records law, casts new light on the practice.

 
Power Wars: Inside Obama's Post-9/11 Presidency, by Charlie Savage
 

Charlie Savage NAFUSA's good friend, Charle Savage of the New York Times, has published his second book, "Power Wars: Inside Obama's Post-9/11 Presidency". Savage, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, has been a speaker or moderator focusing on national security issues at five of NAFUSA's recent national conferences.

His earlier book, "Takeover", described the Bush-Cheney administration's efforts to expand presidential power. In "Power Wars", Savage concludes that Obama continued many of the polices of his predecessor and in some cases expanded them. Published by Little, Brown November 3, 2015.

Savage is a Washington correspondent for the New York Times and has been covering post-9/11 legal-policy issues since 2003. A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, he graduated from Harvard College and holds a master's degree from Yale Law School.

Power Wars



 
Scottsdale Conference Photos Available

Jokake Inn
Hundreds of photos from the successful  Scottsdale conference are now available on line on the nausa.org website. Click on "conferences" and then on "Gallery of NAFUSA Conference Photos." Matt Orwig is shown with Deputy Director Lisa Rafferty.


Matt Orwig and Lisa Rafferty

 
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National Association of Former United States Attorneys (NAFUSA)
P.O. Box 1524
Brighton, Michigan 48116
  
Richard A. Rossman
Executive Director
Phone: 248-548-8289

Lisa Rafferty
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Phone: 810-813-4867
lisarafferty27@gmail.com

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NAFUSA IT Support
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jsteele18@law.du.edu