| Reno Says Too Many Innocent People Are Convicted,
Calls for More Reliability in Address to Attorneys General
by Natashia Gregoire  Law enforcement officers must be fair and thorough in their pursuit of guilt and innocence, even in the face of financial and other challenges, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said at The University of Mississippi.
Some 750 people filled the Ford Center for the Performing Arts to hear Reno deliver the keynote address at the Advanced Cybercrime Training Conference, which brought about 50 attorneys general from across the United States to the Oxford campus in September 2004 for the three-day training.
In her address, “The Justice System: National Security, Wrongful Convictions and Sentencing,” Reno challenged the attorneys general to examine the 149 wrongful convictions that have been overturned through the Innocence Project, identify what went wrong and find ways to improve the way they prosecute cases.
“That is the tip of the iceberg,” Reno said of the number of convictions overturned as a result of second-chance DNA testing. “These are people whose lives have been marred forever by the government’s failure to do it right.”
The entire process—from evidence gathering to witness testimony—must leave no room for contamination, corruption or mistake when human lives are involved, Reno said.
“The system is not producing results that I think are sufficiently reliable,” she said.
Reno said attorneys general should not use lack of funding as an excuse for not doing a better job. She said if time and money are scarce, prosecutors should set aside minor misdemeanor cases to pursue more serious ones.
The problem, Reno said, is not only a law enforcement issue. It begins with overcrowded classrooms that produce ill-equipped citizens who end up behind bars serving mandatory sentences that do not fit their crimes.
“Until the nation takes responsibility, we are going to be the lesser and the weaker for it,” Reno said.
Reno’s address drew a standing ovation from the audience, but some attorneys present took issue with her remarks.
“I don’t agree with all that she said,” said Mississippi Assistant Attorney General Jean Smith Vaughan. “I think her ideas are excellent in determining that cases are prosecuted correctly. But money and time are factors, and cases need to be prosecuted. I agree that we need to do it thoroughly.”
In his introductory remarks, UM Chancellor Robert Khayat said Reno’s impressive service and courageous leadership on the state and national levels have made her one of the country’s most recognizable public figures.
“That notoriety is the result of a long and distinguished career built on passion, compassion, sensitivity, knowledge and ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Khayat said, referring to Reno’s appearance on the late-night comedy show.
“We should laugh at ourselves more often,” Reno said. “America should laugh together.”
Of her time in office, Reno said, “It was the greatest opportunity any lawyer could have to use the law in the right way to make America safer and greater.”
She encouraged UM students to consider careers in public service, cautioning them that although it’s not always a smooth ride, the reward comes in the ability to touch lives.
The Advanced Cybercrime Training Conference is part of a program hosted by the university’s National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law in concert with the National Association of Attorneys General.
“Through this partnership, we increase the ability of state attorneys general offices around the country to combat Internet crime,” said Thomas Clancy, director of the NCJRL. The training programs focus on such Internet crimes as child pornography, identity theft and Internet fraud.
Reno is credited with having the
foresight to implement cybercrime-fighting programs at the dawn of the information age. Reno said one of the biggest challenges facing the United States is figuring out how to “master cybertechnology before it masters us.”
“What if terrorists decide to attack our information infrastructure?” Reno asked, stressing the need for more trained personnel.
For the good of the country, Reno said, divisive political rhetoric needs to end.
“There were a few weeks following 9/11 when this nation came together as it should,” Reno said, calling for healthy, no-spin discussion of important issues.
Reno, the 78th U.S. attorney general, became the first woman to hold the position when she was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. She served for eight years. Reno also was the chief prosecutor for Dade County, Fla., a position she held for almost 20 years.
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International
Masters of Gaming Law Gather in Oxford
by Natashia Gregoire
 Gaming attorneys from as far away as New Zealand and Brazil joined about 65 of their peers in Oxford for the International Masters of Gaming Law Conference and a taste of Ole Miss football.
The September conference brought the group of distinguished attorneys and scholars to the Oxford campus, where they explored the convergence of gaming and technology and its impact on the law and society.
“We’re working with Ole Miss to provide a forum for the academic advancement of the study of gaming law,” said IMGL President Anthony Cabot. “We wanted interaction with universities that have interest in gaming because they are in gaming states.”
Cabot said the group hopes to create a body of gaming law to benefit the entire industry.
During the conference, members presented papers and discussed the unique legal issues policymakers face as they try to keep up with rapidly developing technology in gaming.
“This is a $75 million industry with virtually no legal library to support an industry of that size,” Cabot said.
 The conference covered such topics as regulation and standards for emerging technology, gaming on the Internet, gambling across jurisdictions, fund-transfer technology and cheating on slot machines.
UM gaming law professor and IMGL member Ron Rychlak was instrumental in bringing the conference to the university.
“This is one of the major international associations related to gaming law, and the attorneys involved represent some of the most prestigious casinos and other gaming entities in the world,” said Rychlak, who also serves as associate dean of the UM School of Law. Rychlak said the organization chose Oxford as its conference site during last year’s mid-year meeting in Rome, Italy.
The conference was co-sponsored by the law school in conjunction with the Mississippi Law Journal, which recently published an issue devoted to gaming law.
The conference placed the attorneys from four continents on the UM campus during homecoming weekend. UM alumnus and Biloxi attorney Britt Singletary shared the full game-day experience with his international peers. Singletary, a partner with the firm Singletary and Thrash, treated the attorneys to a tailgating party in the Grove. The attorneys feasted on Gulf Coast shrimp and sported red Ole Miss caps. The university’s ticket office provided tickets for them to see the Rebels beat Arkansas State.
“We have a commitment to keep each other and the rest of the bar knowledgeable about the gaming industry and about the law that affects the industry as it emerges,” Singletary said.
He said the conference provided an excellent networking opportunity for the state’s gaming attorneys. “We share a lot of clients; it’s good for lawyers to know one another and key one another in when a problem occurs.”
During the conference, the IMGL honored the National Indian Gaming Commission as Regulators of the Year.
“The identity of this group can be described in one word: integrity,” said Iowa Gaming Commission Executive Director Jack Ketterer, who presented the award.
In 2003, a similar academic conference was held at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Organizers are considering Spain as the site for this year’s meeting.
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Fighting Cybercrime Requires New Arsenal, Expert Says
by Joe Thompson
 The chief security officer of eBay and former chair of President George Bush’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board addressed an audience of UM law students and national attorneys general during a November conference dedicated to combating cybercrime.
Howard Schmidt’s address, “The Changing Face of Cyber Security: People, Processes and Technology,” kicked off the three-day conference on Advanced Cybercrime Training on Internet Auction Fraud. The public address was presented by the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law at UM.
Donald Mason, NCJRL associate director, said the conference helped keep representatives from attorneys general offices from across the country up to date in the ever-changing world of cybercrimes. Prosecutors and assistant prosecutors from 40 states registered for the conference.
“The conference provides training that … the representatives can take back to their states, and not only use that training but pass it along to others,” Mason said. “It’s great for the law school. Word is spreading about the quality of the programs here. They go home raving about the law school, about Oxford.”
Mason said this was an opportunity to hear from an expert in the field of cybercrime and cybersecurity. “The university was fortunate to have an opportunity to hear someone as steeped in the dynamics of cybercrime and cyberinvestigation as Schmidt, who is as knowledgeable as anyone in the country can be,” Mason said.
Schmidt has been at the forefront in the battle against cybercrime for the last 20 years. He serves as chairman of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. During his 35-year career, he served as special adviser for cyberspace security for the Bush White House, chief security officer for Microsoft and head of the Computer Exploitation Team at the National Drug Intelligence Center for the FBI. He served in the U.S. Air Force, the Arizona Air National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserves as a special agent.
During the three days of the conference, other speakers covered such topics as cybercrime and violence, anti-piracy operations, identity theft and ethics. Participants observed demos of investigative tools and a real-time demo of how an eBay auction works.
Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno addressed a crowd of about 800 at a similar conference at UM in September.
“The conference is an important part of the center’s continuing efforts to increase the ability of the states to combat cybercrime,” said Thomas Clancy, NCJRL director. “When it is over, the prosecutors will bring increased expertise about Internet fraud back to their states.”
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Justice Appeals
 James W. Smith, Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court, delivers a lecture on effective appellate advocacy. The September address was part of a lecture series sponsored by the National Center for Justice and the Rule
of Law.
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Foreign-Banned Internet Hate Sites Finding Home in U.S.
by Natashia Gregoirey
 Banned in several European countries, Web sites that promote racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia are finding shelter under the First Amendment.
UM law professor Ron Rychlak was among a U.S. Department of Justice delegation that addressed this controversy at a conference held by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Rychlak told the more than 300 international delegates who gathered in France for the conference that regulating Internet speech is not an option in the United States because it is in direct conflict with the First Amendment.
“We fear censorship as much as we fear hate speech,” Rychlak said. “History shows that once a government has the authority to censor speech, the power is abused, often to the detriment of those who are most vulnerable.”
Hate speech that contains criminal threats, however, is not protected by the First Amendment.
France, Germany and several other European countries have made it illegal to post hate sites on the Internet. Many of those sites, still targeted at European audiences, are moving their operations to the United States, where they are protected by the First Amendment.
“We don’t prosecute them,” Rychlak said. “The [Europeans] would like us to take a tougher stance, but we can’t, and we don’t think that is the right way to handle things. The answer to bad speech is more speech.”
The United States has taken a strong anti-discrimination stance in the past, with the signing of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But this country refused to endorse Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which relates to the restrictions of free speech on the Internet.
“Most Americans agree that hate speech is bad, but it is better to defeat it in the marketplace of ideas than to simply ban it,” Rychlak said.
Some European delegates criticized what they perceived as Americans’ arrogance on the matter, “but our Constitution would not permit the type of censorship that is fairly common in Europe,” he added.
Education is the key to helping fight hate, said Brian Marcus, director of Internet monitoring for the Anti-Defamation League, whose members were part of the official U.S. delegation to the OSCE conference.
“When confronted by hate online, people will know where and to whom they should turn,” Marcus said.
The ADL has been involved in several programs to educate the public and Web providers about recognizing, reporting and reducing the occurrence of hate speech on the Internet.
“The Internet has been used to intimidate and harass individuals on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation or national origin,” Marcus said.
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Stern Demeanor Belies Heart of Gold
in Prof Honored with Scholarship
by Natashia Gregoire
 University of Mississippi law students love to share stories about professor George Cochran. They dread his constitutional law classes before they enroll, but by semester’s end, they thank him for caring.
Parents of one of Cochran’s former students were so impressed with the influence the professor had on their son’s life that they endowed a scholarship in his honor.
“It was very unexpected,” Cochran said. “I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do. I would hope that people would find this a worthy cause to put their money behind. I want to turn this into a viable scholarship to get money for my students.”
The anonymous $25,000 gift creates the George C. Cochran Scholarship in Law, which will be awarded once every three years to a full-time entering law student selected by a scholarship committee. The student will receive $1,200 a year for three years.
“As I visit our alumni, George is someone they always ask about,” said Dean Samuel Davis. “He has a profound impact on all who take his classes, and it is gratifying to see that the parents of one of those students want to honor him in this special way.”
Cochran, a faculty member since 1974, teaches Constitutional Law, Supreme Court Practice, and Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure.
“Beyond his unique style of instructing and his encyclopedic knowledge of landmark jurisprudence, his spirit is what I remember most,” said attorney Warren Martin, one of Cochran’s former students. “As I visited his office a few times, he’d stop what he was doing, take off his glasses and proceed to clarify any misconceptions I had. And every time I left his office, he’d say, ‘Love ya, man.’”
During his professional career, Cochran, a former Washington, D.C., attorney, has served as director of the Center on Law and Poverty at Duke University and as an attorney for the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
Cochran splits his time between UM and Fordham University in New York, where he has been a visiting professor for the last 14 years. He also works with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
“George Cochran serves as a perpetual reminder of the good that can radiate from the portals of the human spirit,” Martin said.
Joyce Whittington, the law school’s director of career services, befriended Cochran during his early years at UM.
“Because he’s perceived as having this gruff demeanor in class, some students may be afraid of him,” Whittington said. “But he’s the kindest man I’ve ever known. I dread the day when he retires.”
Cochran said retiring hasn’t crossed his mind. “Being a law professor is a very rewarding profession,” he said.
Whittington said she admires Cochran’s dedication to racial equality in the state and throughout the South.
“He believes that everyone should be on an equal playing field,” Whittington said. “He believes it, and he lives it.” Back to top
Scholarship Honors Memory of Senator, Alumnus
The memory of the late William Edward McIntyre Jr. (JD 48) will live on in the form of a scholarship awarded to University of Mississippi law students.
The William Edward McIntyre Jr. Memorial Scholarship was created with a $100,000 gift from his widow, Harriet Humphreys. The new scholarship will be awarded to an outstanding entering law student once every three years starting this fall.
“The scholarship will initially generate about $5,000 per year,” said Tim Walsh, associate director of alumni affairs and major gifts officer for the UM School of Law.
Humphreys said her husband was very involved during his time at the university. McIntyre served as a Mississippi state senator for Rankin and Smith counties and practiced law in Brandon until his death in 1980.
“Scholarships constitute our greatest need as we continue to strive to attract the best students to the law school,” said Dean Samuel Davis. “I am deeply appreciative of Mrs. Humphreys’s generosity in endowing this scholarship to memorialize her late husband, a great public servant and a great friend of the law school.”
Humphreys said she thought about creating the scholarship for a long time and now has found the means to do so.
“I think Ole Miss has a great law school,” Humphreys said. “My granddaughter recently graduated from Ole Miss and worked her whole way through law school. I think there is a need for more scholarships for law
students.” —Jennifer Russell
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Law Students Joined National Effort
to Monitor 2004 Election
by Natashia Gregoire
 A nonpartisan group of University of Mississippi law students was part of a nationwide effort to ensure that eligible voters were not turned away from the polls during the Nov. 2 general elections.
The students, members of the law school’s chapter of Just Democracy, were stationed in polling places throughout Oxford. They reported few problems.
“They looked out for irregularities,” said law professor Michael Waterstone, who worked with the students. “They were the line of first response to call the right authorities, or provide answers if polling place workers had questions about the implementation of new national laws and policies.”
All the students were trained to monitor Oxford’s five precincts.
Through its network of law students, Just Democracy set out to assist 500,000 voters at 500 high-risk polling places across the country.
“Not only did we need to get people out to register to vote, but we needed to make sure things ran smoothly on Election Day,” said third-year law student Tiffany Kilpatrick. As head of the UM chapter and Southeast coordinator for Just Democracy, Kilpatrick worked with other law schools, including those at the University of Miami, Emory University and the University of Tennessee, to implement similar programs.
“I saw one poll that estimated about 2 million people were wrongly turned away during the 2000 elections,” Kilpatrick said. “You always hear ‘get out to vote,’ [but] people try and they can’t, mainly because of a lot of misinformation.”
Waterstone expected issues relating to the Help America Vote Act to pose some problems on Election Day. Passed in 2002 following the 2000 Florida election debacle, the act was meant to modernize voting systems. It mandated other practices to improve voting, such as provisional ballots for people who arrive at polling places where their names are not on the rolls.
Before the elections, the ballots sparked numerous lawsuits across the country, but problems did not materialize on the scale experts had expected.
Second-year law student Latoya Redd said several people voted on affidavit ballots at the Jackson Avenue poll she monitored, but there were no major problems.
“The only problem I noticed was that poll workers were not making sure people understood their affidavit ballots may not be counted,” Redd said.
According to its mission statement, “Just Democracy chapters bring the resources of law schools, students and faculties to bear in their own communities to strengthen American democracy … and instill a sense of responsibility in the next generation of law school graduates for stewardship of the democratic process.”
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