Allocating Prosecutorial Power: How Prosecutors Compete, Cooperate and Clash

On April 23, 2010, the Center hosted its second major annual conference, "Allocating Prosecutorial Power: How Prosecutors Compete, Cooperate and Clash." 

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, delivered the keynote address.

Panelists included:

  • Elkan Abramowitz, Principal, Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer LLP
  • Daniel R. Alonso, Chief Assistant District Attorney, Manhattan District Attorney's Office; former Chief of the Criminal Division, United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York
  • Rachel Barkow, Professor of Law, NYU School of Law, and Faculty Director, Center on the Administration of Criminal Law
  • Michael A. Battle, partner, Fulbright & Jaworski LLP; former Director, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, United States Department of Justice, United States Attorney for the Western District of New York, and Federal Public Defender
  • Sara Sun Beale, Professor of Law, Duke Law School
  • Ronald Goldstock, New York State Commissioner of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor
  • Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., Partner, Andrews Kurth LLP; former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Associate Independent Counsel
  • The Honorable Sterling Johnson, Jr., United States District Judge, Eastern District of New York; former Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York
  • John Kroger, Attorney General of the State of Oregon; former Assistant United States Attorney, United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York
  • Katherine A. Lemire, Counsel to Raymond W. Kelly, Police Commissioner of the City of New York; former Assistant United States Attorney, Southern District of New York; former Assistant District Attorney, Manhattan District Attorney's Office
  • Harry Litman, practitioner and Visiting Professor, Rutgers Law School and Princeton University; former United States Attorney, Western District of Pennsylvania and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department of Justice
  • Tracey L. Meares, Deputy Dean and Professor of Law, Yale Law School
  • Joan E. Meyer, Partner, Baker & McKenzie LLP; former Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States
  • Anne Milgram, Former Attorney General of the State of New Jersey, Special Litigation Counsel, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice, Assistant District Attorney, Manhattan District Attorney's Office
  • Lisa Miller, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University
  • Daniel C. Richman, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; former Assistant United States Attorney, United States Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York
  • Paul Shechtman, Partner, Stillman, Friedman & Shechtman; former  Director of Criminal Justice, State of New York; former Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York; former Counsel to the Manhattan District Attorney
  • Robert Spagnoletti, Partner, Schertler & Onorato LLP, and President, District of Columbia Bar; former Attorney General for the District of Columbia and Assistant United States Attorney, United States Attorney's Office, District of Columbia
  • John W. Suthers, Attorney General of the State of Colorado; former United States Attorney, District of Colorado and District Attorney, Colorado Springs, Colorado
  • Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General of the State of New York; former Acting Solicitor General and Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States; Counsel to the United States Attorney and Chief Assistant, United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York; executive official and attorney in the Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan District Attorneys' Offices; Professor of Law, Yale Law School

The subject of the conference was inter- and intra-jurisdictional cooperation and competition among criminal prosecutors.

Some of the topics addressed included: the advantages, disadvantages, and dynamics of competition between local, state, and federal prosecutors, what can go wrong and what keeps prosecutors from working cooperatively, what can be done to improve coordination and cooperation,  and issues regarding centralized or decentralized authority.