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Janet Wood Reno (July 21, 1938 – November 7, 2016) served as the Attorney General of the United States from 1993 until 2001. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11, 1993. She was the first woman to serve as Attorney General and the second-longest serving Attorney General in U.S. history, after William Wirt.
Early life
Reno was born in Miami, Florida. Reno's mother, Jane Wallace (née Wood), raised her children and then became an investigative reporter for The Miami News. Her father, Henry Olaf Reno (né Rasmussen), was an emigrant from Denmark and a reporter for the Miami Herald for 43 years. Janet Reno had three younger siblings: Mark (died 2014); writer Robert Reno (1939–2012); and Maggy Hurchalla. The family moved to property near the Everglades when Reno was 8 years old, living in a house Reno's mother built.
Reno attended public school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where she was a debating champion, and was valedictorian at Coral Gables Senior High School. In 1956 she enrolled at Cornell University, where she majored in chemistry, became president of the Women's Self-Government Association, and earned her room and board. After graduating from Cornell, Reno enrolled at Harvard Law School, one of only 16 women in a class of 500 students. She graduated from Harvard in 1963.
Career
From 1963 to 1971 Reno worked as an attorney for two Miami law firms. In 1971, she joined the staff of the Judiciary Committee of the Florida House of Representatives. In 1973, she worked on a project to revise the state's system of rules and regulations for criminal procedures. Later in the same year, she accepted a position with the Dade County State Attorney's Office. She worked for the Judiciary Circuit, and left the state attorney's office in 1976 to become a partner in a private law firm.
State Attorney
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 worked actively in various civic organizations, including the Miami Coalition for a Safe and Drug Free Community and the Beacon Council, which was formed to address Miami-Dade's economic development. During Reno's tenure as state attorney, she began what the PBS series Frontline described as a "crusade" against accused child abusers. An editorial in the St. Petersburg Times argued:
Reno's reputation as a state attorney, the foundation for her eight years as the nation's attorney general and her [2002] candidacy for governor of Florida, was built in significant part by her aggressive prosecution of three sensational child abuse cases in Miami-Dade County. She pioneered a controversial technique for eliciting intimate details from young children and inspired passage of a law allowing them to testify by closed-circuit television, out of the possibly intimidating presence of their suspected molesters.
Several of those prosecuted by Reno were either acquitted or later released by appellate judges. One defendant, "a 14-year-old boy, was acquitted after his attorneys discredited the children's persistent interrogations by a psychologist who called herself the 'yucky secrets doctor'. Another was freed by a federal appeals court after 12 years in prison."
In May 1980, Reno prosecuted five white policemen who were accused of beating a black insurance salesman to death. The policemen were all acquitted. During the resulting 1980 Miami riots, eighteen people were killed, with looters in Liberty City angrily chanting "Reno! Reno! Reno!" Reno met with nearly all of her critics, and a few months later, she won reelection in a landslide.
Country Walk
In 1984, Frank Fuster, the owner of the Country Walk Babysitting Service, in a suburb of Miami, Florida, was found guilty of 14 counts of abuse and sentenced to a prison sentence with a minimum of 165 years. Fuster was convicted based in large part on the testimony of his 18-year-old wife, Ileana Flores, who pleaded guilty and testified against him. According to a 2002 episode of Frontline, Flores maintained that "he was innocent, she was innocent and that she was coerced by Reno and others into denouncing her husband. She said she was kept naked in a suicide-watch cell and given cold showers and that Reno visited her late at night in pursuit of her confession and damning testimony." Reno, then a candidate for Governor of Florida, refused to discuss her role in the case, leading one editorial to claim that she was "stonewalling".
Bobby Fijnje
In 1989, as Florida state attorney, Reno pressed adult charges against 13-year-old Bobby Fijnje, who was accused of sexually molesting 21 children in his care during church services. The charges were driven by the testimony of children interviewed by mental-health professionals using techniques later discredited as a contemporary version of witch hunts. During the trial, the prosecution was unable to present any witnesses to the alleged abuse. After two years of investigation and trial, Fijnje was acquitted of all charges.
After the trial, Reno received a letter from the jury. The jurors in the Fijnje case wanted Reno to know why her office had failed to make a convincing case. They wrote: "It is our hope that this case will lay the foundation upon which a set of policies and guidelines are built so that when cases of abuse, especially child abuse, are alleged, the programs in place will allow for appropriate questioning and investigation by the police, physicians and child psychologists so as to drastically reduce the chances of conflicting testimony and charges of contamination that can and will raise reasonable doubt."
U.S. Attorney General
In 1993, during Bill Clinton's administration, Reno was nominated and confirmed as the first woman to serve as the United States Attorney General. Both of his previous choices, Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood, faced problems because both had employed undocumented 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.
The following Department of Justice actions occurred during Reno's tenure:
- The 51-day Waco siege standoff and resulting 76 deaths—the Branch Davidians—in Waco, Texas. (The standoff began on February 28, 1993, twelve days before Reno was installed as Attorney-General.) Reno in congressional testimony stated that she authorized the FBI assault on the Branch Davidians because of reports that militia groups were en route to Waco during the standoff "either to help [Branch Davidian leader David] Koresh or to attack him." Reno publicly expressed her regret of the decision to storm the compound, and accepted full responsibility for the loss of life.
- 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 which ended without loss of life.
- Capture and conviction of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
- Capture and conviction of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for the Oklahoma City bombing.
- Capture and conviction of those who conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, resulting in life-sentences of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and four 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."
- The government's unsuccessful defense of the Communications Decency Act, which culminated in the Supreme Court decision Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union.
- Identification of the correct suspect (Eric Rudolph) in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing and other bombings, who remained a fugitive throughout her tenure. Rudolph was apprehended in 2003 and pleaded guilty to the attacks.
- Capture and conviction of Mir Qazi for the 1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters.
- The armed seizure of six-year-old Elián González and his return to his father, who eventually took him home to Cuba; Elián's mother and stepfather had died in a dangerous trip by sea, and though his U.S. relatives had lost custody to his father in court, local officials did not enforce the ruling. Reno made the decision to remove Elián González from the house of a relative.
- In 1998, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee voted to cite Reno for contempt of Congress for not turning over documents during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The full House of Representatives never voted on the resolution and the documents were turned over to the House.
Reno ran for Governor of Florida in 2002, but lost in the Democratic primary to Bill McBride 44% to 44.4%. Voting problems arose in the election, and she did not concede defeat until a week later.
Activity after public service career
After her tenure as United States Attorney General and her unsuccessful gubernatorial bid, Reno toured the country giving speeches on topics relating to the criminal justice system. On March 31, 2006, she spoke at a criminology conference at the University of Pennsylvania. She stated that she believed the education system in the United States needs to be improved, as there is a link between the quality of education and the crime rate. She also believed that too much money has been diverted away from the juvenile court system and 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 they reach adulthood.
In 2001, Reno appeared alongside Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live in the final installment of the recurring sketch "Janet Reno's Dance Party". On a 2007 Super Bowl XLI TV commercial, Reno was among the guests at Chad Ochocinco's Super Bowl party.
Reno curated a compilation of old-time American songs performed by contemporary artists called the Song of America.
Reno served on the board of directors for the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization which assists prisoners who may be exonerated through DNA testing.
In March 2008, Reno received the Council on Litigation Management's Professionalism Award, which recognizes and commemorates an individual who has demonstrated the unique ability to lead others by example in the highest standard of their profession.
On April 17, 2009, Reno was awarded the Justice Award by the American Judicature Society. Eric Holder, Attorney General under the Obama Administration, presented Reno the award. Seth Andersen, Executive Vice President of AJS said the award recognizes "her commitment to improving our systems of justice and educating Americans about our great common enterprise – to ensure equality under the law." The award is the highest given by the AJS, and recognizes significant contributions toward improvements in the administration of justice within the United States.
In 2013, Reno voiced herself for the "Dark Knight Court" episode of The Simpsons.
Personal life
Reno never married and did not have children. In response to a 1998 Saturday Night Live sketch which portrayed her as lonely, former Justice Department public affairs director Carl Stern said, "Both in Florida and in Washington she has a great many friends whose homes she visits, and she goes to plays, her dance card is full.”
Death
Reno was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1995, from which she died on November 7, 2016. She was surrounded by friends and family at the end of her life, including her sister Maggy and her goddaughter.