It is difficult to measure the performance of an Attorney General. The crime rate is down, but that may be the result of broader economic or social forces. She has championed more partnerships between federal and state authorities. She has been a tireless public speaker whose central theme is that if children are mistreated by abusive parents--slapped for no reason and then ignored when they misbehave--they grow up confused about the meaning of, and penalties for, misconduct. Reno is certainly not a leading legal theorist, a role that may more properly belong to the Solicitor General than to the Attorney General. But to me her great contribution is that she served with integrity during an unusually vicious era in American politics, one in which criminal charges were wildly tossed about by the President's critics in Congress and in the press.

"One doesn't get the sense of a grand vision from Reno," says Professor Herman Schwartz of American University. "She was a good journeyman prosecutor and a decent person, but her Justice Department has been party to some very severe hits on civil rights." Schwartz cites as examples expansion of wiretaps; restrictions on the use of habeas corpus, which allows convicts to appeal state trials in federal courts; and denial of hearings for undocumented seekers of political asylum in illegal immigration cases. He adds, "You can't expect much of a civil liberties vision on the part of a local district attorney."

Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat and member of the House Judiciary Committee, holds Reno and her Justice Department responsible for defending summary denials of political asylum. "If you come to this country without proper documentation, the immigration officer can make the determination that you are not entitled to asylum, and there is no appeal, no hearing, no right to go before a judge," Nadler said. "But it is precisely the person fleeing the Gestapo or SAVAK who has no proper documentation. This is a terrible assault on civil rights."

* * *

Father Robert Drinan, who teaches legal ethics at Georgetown University, says he is disappointed in Reno for failing to do more to eliminate the death penalty or reduce the US prison population. "She has [twenty federal prisoners] on death row and almost 2 million people in prison," he said. "I don't think that shows any leadership." Drinan also faults Reno for supporting a rule that exempted federal prosecutors from state bar association prohibitions against directly contacting a person known to be represented by a lawyer. Ironically, such direct contact was one of the complaints made against Kenneth Starr when his office tried to negotiate with Monica Lewinsky in the absence of her lawyer; Reno supported Starr's position.

In addition to such criticism, Reno has been the subject of no fewer than ten lawsuits from a private group called Judicial Watch, funded in part by the right-wing multimillionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and protected by a complaisant federal judge, Royce Lamberth, who has allowed Judicial Watch chairman Larry Klayman extraordinary latitude in conducting endless, rambling depositions of government officials. (Among the questions Klayman repeatedly asks is whether any of the government officials has ever talked to me.) Justice Watch says in one of its characteristic press releases that "it is clear that our Department of Justice has degenerated into a national disgrace. It is now itself a cesspool of corruption. Judicial Watch will continue to file one lawsuit after another against Ms. Reno and her compliant sycophants until justice, real justice is done."

Given the passion and variety of the charges against her, one might be seduced into thinking they must also have some legal or at least ethical merit. This would be a mistake, as a look at the individual cases will show.

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