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“NOMINATION OF PAUL CASSELL” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S4251-S4252 on May 13, 2002.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NOMINATION OF PAUL CASSELL
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will speak in morning business but really on the subject of our 6 o'clock vote, the nomination of Paul Cassell to be judge for the district court serving the State of Utah.
I am not from Utah, obviously. And you might ask, what is an Arizona Senator doing speaking on behalf of a nominee from another State? The answer to that question is, I have gotten to know Paul Cassell, and I am a very big fan of Paul Cassell. I think he will do a superb job on the bench. I just want to take a couple minutes of my colleagues' time to explain why.
It is not often we have the opportunity, as Senators, to vote for a nominee, who we really have gotten to know in our work in the Senate, to serve as a district judge in another State. But Paul Cassell has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and has worked many hours with Senator Feinstein and myself and some other Senators in helping to craft the victims' rights constitutional amendment.
You can have a view either for or against that amendment, but Professor Laurence Tribe from Harvard and Professor Paul Cassell from the University of Utah are the two legal professors, constitutional scholars, who have helped us most. They may represent different points on the political spectrum perhaps, but in terms of their legal scholarship and their ability to work together in helping us to craft this amendment, they have performed a magnificent service.
Again, whatever one thinks of the particular amendment, you cannot deny that these two professors have contributed significantly to the work of the Senate and, therefore, to the American people as a result of their work.
Let me just tell you a little bit about Professor Cassell first and then talk about his work on behalf of victims of crime. As I say, that is one of the primary reasons I am so supportive of him.
As I said, he is a member of the facility at the University of Utah College of Law where he teaches criminal procedure and evidence and some other courses as well.
He has published over 25 Law Review articles, as well as major op-eds and various periodicals.
Before entering academia, Professor Cassell served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and as Associate Deputy Attorney General at our Department of Justice.
He clerked for then-Judge Antonin Scalia in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Those of us familiar with these facts know if you are able to clerk for both a member of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and then for the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, you are a law student graduate with something on the ball. Certainly, Professor Cassell fits that category.
He received his J.D. in 1984 from Stanford University, where he was Order of the Coif and president of the Stanford Law Review.
So his academic credentials and his postacademic career have been outstanding.
He tried a number of cases when he was assistant U.S. attorney. As a matter of fact, he prosecuted 17 felony jury trials, and some of them were very famous cases. I will let others talk about those cases. But one of the most interesting things to me that Professor Cassell did--
purely without pay; as a volunteer--was to represent the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing case.
You may ask, why did the victims in the Oklahoma City bombing case need representation? You can imagine, having as many victims as there were in that case--people who were either injured in the bombing or the families of people who were killed, all wanting to be involved or participate in some way in that case, including even just the ability to be in the courtroom--it was a major battle.
As a matter of fact, the judge in that case--not once but twice--
ruled that the families of the victims did not have a right to be in the courtroom during the trial. This was not because there were so many people that they could not all fit into the courtroom, although that was another issue, but the reason the court ruled that way was that the defense had argued it would be prejudicial to the defense, to the defendants, if the victims or their families were actually in the courtroom during the trial. Never mind that a judge always has the ability to say: Everybody will be motionless, will show no emotion, will behave themselves; and if they do not, then I will toss them out of the courtroom. That was not good enough in this case.
We in Congress passed a law saying: You have to let the people who were victims of the Oklahoma City bombing case sit in the courtroom. The case went back to the judge, and again the judge said no. One of the reasons he said no had to do with the reason for the victims' rights constitutional amendment, which I will not go into now, but basically he said the defendants' rights are in the U.S. Constitution, and the mere statute of Congress cannot override that. So these victims are going to have to have special rights. They are going to have to be in the Constitution. That is another argument, as I said.
But Paul Cassell, out of the goodness of his heart, represented all the victims in that case. I think the victims I have talked to would tell you, to a person, they were extraordinarily indebted to Paul Cassell for his service to them in that case.
There is much more I could say about this individual. Paul Cassell is a decent person who believes very strongly in the rights of both defendants and victims in the courtroom. He has served as a prosecutor for the United States of America and, therefore, has represented our Government in many cases against some truly bad felons. He has experience on the criminal side and on the civil side and has experience as a law professor, teaching not only constitutional law but evidence. That makes him uniquely qualified to go from where he is now to the bench.
It is not often that we find people who have this wide array of experience willing to serve on the Federal district court. It is much too easy in today's world for lawyers to make good money in the practice of law. But it is obvious that Paul Cassell has never been interested in just making money. He has wanted to serve, first, the people of the United States of America as an assistant U.S. attorney and then through his professorship to serve victims of crime and others on a purely pro bono basis.
We have a unique person who not only is extraordinarily well qualified from his academic experience and the breadth of his practice experience but who also has demonstrated a desire to serve the people. For a person as young to have that kind of commitment and to be willing to go on the Federal district court is unique and certainly should cause us to vote for his confirmation.
I know him personally. We couldn't do better than to confirm Paul Cassell to serve on the Federal district court in the State of Utah. I commend my colleagues to support his confirmation when we vote in a little over an hour.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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