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'Janet Reno' (born July 21, 1938) was the first female Attorney General of the United States (1993–2001). She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11. She was the second longest serving Attorney General after William Wirt.

Contents

Biography

Dade County Day Care Center Panic

Attorney General Nomination

At the Justice Department

Post-political life

See also

Sources

External links

Biography

Reno's father, Henry Reno (original surname Rasmussen), immigrated to the United States from Denmark and for forty-three years was a police reporter for the ''Miami Herald''. Jane Wood, Reno's mother, raised her children and then became an investigative reporter for the ''Miami News''. At a conference on criminality on March 31 2006, Reno said that her mother built the Reno family house on the edge of the Everglades, digging the foundation with her own hands, and installing all of the wiring and plumbing. Reno's father helped with the heavy work when he came home from work at night. The house withstood Hurricane Andrew, an experience that left an important mark on Reno's outlook on life: Reno said that the experience taught her that if communities are built with the right materials, instilling values such as discipline, these communities can be made strong and can prevent or withstand violence. Janet Reno has three younger siblings. She is the sister of columnist Robert Reno, and aunt to model Hunter Reno. She was one of two Danish Americans in the cabinet, the other being Lloyd Bentsen.
Reno attended public school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where she was a debating champion and was valedictorian at Coral Gables High School. In 1956 Reno enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she majored in chemistry, lived in Balch Hall, became president of the Women's Self-Government Association, and earned her room and board.
In 1960, Reno enrolled at Harvard Law School, one of only sixteen women in a class of more than 500 students. She received her LL.B. from Harvard three years later.
In 1971, Reno was named staff director of the Judiciary Committee of the Florida House of Representatives. She helped revise the Florida court system. In 1973 she accepted a position with the Dade County State's Attorney's Office. During this time, questions about Reno's sexual orientation became a major part of Republican opponent Jack Thompson's campaign against her, who demanded to know her sexual orientation [1]. She left the state's attorney's office in 1976 to become a partner in a private law firm.
In 1978, Reno was appointed State Attorney for Dade County (now called Miami-Dade County). She was elected to the Office of State Attorney in November 1978 and was returned to office by the voters four more times. She helped reform the juvenile justice system and pursued delinquent fathers for child support payments and established the Miami Drug Court.
During her time in Dade County, she was the lead prosecutor in a police brutality case. She was unable to convict any of the four officers charged with beating Arthur McDuffie in 1979. She had a solid case, giving some officers immunity to testify, but the officers who reached jury trial were acquitted by an all white male jury.

Dade County Day Care Center Panic

Reno's main focus as state's attorney would begin during her reelection campaign in 1984. It was then that she carefully crafted a "children's rights" approach to the prosecution of several suspected child abusers. This was especially notable, as hundreds of prosecutors nationwide patterned themselves after her systematic style, creating a national pandemic.
Starting in 1984, Reno used Joseph and Laurie Braga, two self-styled experts at interviewing children, to gain most of the "confessions" from the children. The Bragas coerced numerous children into confessions that were thrown out on appeal in both state and federal courts years later. One federal judge described the confessions as "fundamentally unfair." Some of the kids later admitted that they confessed only because they were told other children claimed abuse, and that they were tired of being told "I don't believe you," and "because I was getting tired ... [that] I told a lie." [2]
A notable example of Reno's gung-ho practices was her successful prosecution of Frank and Ileana Fuster. Ileana owned a day care center and was drugged for more than a year while in jail awaiting trial. She plead guilty, but professed innocence saying she had no recollection of any child abuse and just wanted the case to go away. The Fusters were later acquitted on appeal. Likewise, Reno used the Braga's expertise to imprison police officer Grant Snowden, whose wife ran a day care center out of their home. Officer Snowden was falsely accused of child molestation by an abusive father after Snowden complained about the father's abuse. This set the stage for Snowden's 11-year prison sentence, that was overturned by a federal court when Reno was the United States Attorney General in the late 1990s.

Attorney General Nomination

In 1993, Reno was nominated and confirmed as the first female Attorney General under Bill Clinton, after both of his previous nominees, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, had confirmation problems when it was revealed both had previously employed illegal immigrants as nannies. Reno remained Attorney General for the rest of Clinton's presidency, making her the longest-serving Attorney General since William Wirt in 1829.
While Clinton could steer a middle ground between his Democratic supporters and the Republican Congress on economic issues, Reno's job was at the center of a variety of intractable cultural conflicts. This made her a lightning rod for criticism of the Clinton Administration from the right, who often perceived the federal government as a threat to their fundamental freedoms.

At the Justice Department

Reno supervised the following Department of Justice actions:


★ The month-long standoff and ensuing deaths of more than 80 men, women, and children--the Branch Davidians--in Waco, Texas. This was the deadliest government action taken against American citizens on U.S. soil since the Civil War.

★ Bringing suit against the software company Microsoft for violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

★ Prosecution resulting in the conviction of 21 of the Montana Freemen after an 81 day armed standoff.

★ Capture and conviction of the Unabomber.

★ Capture and conviction of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for the Oklahoma City bombing.

★ Capture and conviction of those who conducted the World Trade Center bombing (resulting in life-sentences of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and 4 conspirators)

★ Leak to the news media regarding Richard Jewell that led to the widespread and incorrect presumption of his guilt in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. She later apologized, saying "I'm very sorry it happened. I think we owe him an apology. I regret the leak." ^[1]

★ Identification of the correct suspect (Eric Rudolph) in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing and other bombings, who remained a fugitive throughout her tenure.

★ Capture and conviction of Mir Aimal Kasi for the CIA headquarters shootings.

★ Armed seizure of six-year-old Elián González and his return to his surviving parent in Cuba.

Post-political life

Reno ran for Governor of Florida in 2002, but lost in the Democratic primary to Bill McBride. Voting problems arose in the election, and she did not concede defeat until a week later. She has since retired from public life but frequently makes guest appearances for Democratic and other political causes.
After her tenure as attorney general and her unsuccessful gubernatorial election bid, Reno tours the country giving speeches on topics relating to the criminal justice system. For example, on March 31, 2006, she spoke at a criminology conference held at the University of Pennsylvania. At this conference, she stated that she believes that the education system in this country needs to be improved, as there is a link between the quality of education and the crime rate. She also believes that too much money has been diverted away from the juvenile court system and believes that the government should find some way to make the juvenile courts work effectively so as to prevent problems in troubled children and adolescents before these problems are exacerbated by the time these adolescents reach adulthood.

On ''Saturday Night Live'', Janet Reno chose to appear alongside Will Ferrell's tough-talking, easily excited impersonation of Reno. Reno appeared on the final installment of the recurring sketch "Janet Reno's Dance Party" in January 2001. [3]In another television appearance, on a 2007 Super Bowl XLI TV commercial, Janet Reno was among the guests at Chad Johnson's Super Bowl party ([4]).
Reno is also curating a compilation of old-time American songs performed by contemporary artists called the "Song of America" [5]

See also

★ List of famous tall women

★ Timeline of Cox Report controversy

Sources

★ ''This article incorporates text from the Department of Justice website, which is in the public domain.''

★ Miami New Times on Reno's controversial sexual abuse prosecution

External links