The report, issued more than a year ago, concluded: "Department of Justice attorneys involved did not misuse the material witness statute, and thus did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment."
The OPR also exonerated department lawyers in connection with the case of Brandon Mayfield, a Muslim attorney in Portland, Ore., who was detained when the FBI erroneously linked his fingerprints to detonators involved in the March 2004 Madrid train bombings. In 2006, the government apologized and paid Mayfield a $2-million settlement. The OPR action was made public by the Justice Department without elaboration.
But the resolution of most matters investigated by the OPR remains closely guarded, even in cases where courts have found evidence of serious prosecutorial misconduct.
For example, a multimillion-dollar securities fraud case in Las Vegas was dismissed two years ago after an assistant U.S. attorney acknowledged in the middle of trial that he had failed to turn over evidence to defense lawyers that undermined the credibility of some crucial government witnesses.
"This is prosecutorial misconduct in its highest form; conduct in flagrant disregard of the United States Constitution; and conduct which should be deterred by the strongest sanctions available," a federal appeals court ruled in agreeing that dismissal of the fraud charges was warranted. The U.S. attorney reported the allegations to the OPR, which sent a team to Nevada to investigate.
Natalie Collins, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas, told a legal newspaper that the OPR found no evidence of "intentional misconduct" by the office. She declined to say whether any other misconduct was found or whether any discipline was ordered. The OPR declined to comment.
Though the office does not release reports about individual cases, it does inform the parties to the investigations of the results, and they are free to make the decisions public.
After President Bush took office in 2001, the Justice Department reversed a decade-old policy of publicly disclosing detailed summaries of OPR investigations of department lawyers found to have committed professional misconduct. Janet Reno, attorney general since 1993, had believed that publicizing the information would bolster confidence in the department; and during her tenure she had authorized the release of two dozen public summaries of misconduct cases -- including one against then-FBI Director William S. Sessions.
