Friday, August 17, 2001

Contact: Emily Forsyth, University Relations, (785) 864-8860

KU law professor is Bush's choice for U.S. attorney; will be sworn in Monday

LAWRENCE--University of Kansas law professor Roscoe C. Howard Jr., who President Bush has nominated as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, will be sworn in as the interim U.S. attorney on Monday.

Howard, a former federal prosecutor in Virginia and the District, will seek formal confirmation by the U.S. Senate sometime this fall.

"I'm excited and looking forward to serving the people of the District of Columbia and the citizens of the nation," Howard said. "KU is an outstanding school and I certainly hope to remain in contact with the colleagues and friends I've made in seven years here."

The U.S. attorney's job in Washington is one of the most coveted federal prosecutor slots in the country. The office is the largest in the nation, with 350 lawyers and an equal number of support personnel. Unlike other federal prosecutors, the U.S. attorney in the District oversees local as well as federal criminal cases.

Howard was a federal prosecutor in the District and Virginia from 1984 to 1990. During that period, he worked on an independent counsel investigation of fraud in the Reagan administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development, a probe that led to several convictions.

He joined the Kansas law school faculty in 1994 and worked on an independent counsel investigation of former agriculture secretary Mike Espy during a one-year leave of absence. Espy was eventually acquitted of gratuities charges.

"That's a great choice," said Russell Duncan, a Washington lawyer who worked with Howard in the Washington office of the U.S. attorney. "They're going to get a career prosecutor who knows prosecutions from the ground up."

Justin Williams, an assistant U.S. attorney who worked with Howard in Virginia, said Howard would quickly win the respect of his staff attorneys.

"He'll do an excellent job because he's been there," Williams said. "He's like a country preacher in the courtroom and very, very good on his feet. And he's been involved in fairly complicated drug and corruption investigations."

Once confirmed, Howard will be the third African American to run the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. The president selects U.S. attorneys to run 94 such offices throughout the country.