US Judge Chastises Department of Justice
By Jonathan Saltzman, The Boston Globe
The chief federal judge in Boston has urged the new US attorney general to crack down on prosecutors who commit misconduct and to force Justice Department lawyers to be truthful in court.
Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf, in an extraordinary letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, skewered the Justice Department’s mild and secret discipline of Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Auerhahn in 2006 for misconduct that Wolf said required him to order the “release from prison of a capo and associate of the Patriarca family of La Cosa Nostra.”
After a closed disciplinary hearing, US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan gave Auerhahn a letter of reprimand for withholding evidence while handling a racketeering case in the 1990s against members of the New England Mafia.
“The [Justice] Department’s performance in the Auerhahn matter raises serious questions about whether judges should continue to rely upon the department to investigate and sanction misconduct by federal prosecutors,” wrote Wolf, who last July, after expressing frustration with his punishment, took the unusual step of asking the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers to launch disciplinary proceedings against Auerhahn.
Wolf also wrote that “the department’s failure to be candid and consistent with the court has become disturbingly common in the District of Massachusetts.”