Please share this message with those who can may a difference on an important justice issue.
As the May 12th anniversary of the Postville Iowa Agriprocessors ICE raid is near, I am writing call attention to a very troubling injustice that is developing that only rubs salt in the wound. We all should be outraged how immigrants working in Postville were treated like slaves and then denied any form of justice in swift and chaotic criminal court proceedings orchestrated by the Northern Iowa United States Attorney’s office. Apparently the reports about the shame of Postville didn’t reach the US Senate because unbelievably now one of the lead federal prosecutors responsible for the egregious and inhumane Postville, Iowa prosecution has been recommend to be promoted to the powerful position of United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. Ms. Stephanie Rose is the nominee of United States Senator Tom Harkin to be the next United States Attorney of the Northern District of Iowa. (U.S.A) The White House is now reviewing Senator Harkin’s questionable recommendation. The President’s legal team will be conducting a background check on Ms Rose’s personal and professional record before deciding whether to formally nominate her to the U.S. Senate for confirmation. Accordingly there is time to impact this appointment and I am told that the White House will be very interested in learning about Ms. Rose’s sorry record as a prosecutor.
As Deputy Criminal Chief of the Northern District U.S.A. office, Ms. Rose played a pivotal leadership role in policy making in an U.S.A. office widely known for ruthless tactics and rarely granting mercy in arguing sentencing cases. As Deputy Criminal Chief, she helped design, organize and execute the unprecedented use of expedited trials to convict 306 undocumented workers at the Postville.
Wasn’t Ms Rose just a low-level prosecutor doing her job?
No! Ms. Rose was Chief Deputy of the Criminal Division of the USA office Northern District of Iowa. Starting in 2008, she had a leadership and managerial role in the USA office for policy, personnel and operational decisions.
It is impossible to understand what grounds Ms Rose and her colleagues had for choosing to exercise their prosecutorial discretion in this case with such aggression and lack of respect for due process, other than the requirements of their own ambition. They brought the full force of the USA office to bear on the most vulnerable members of a community with full knowledge that the U.S. Department of Labor was conducting an ongoing investigation of child- labor and wage violations at the plant where these same workers were being victimized. All of these workers were laboring in one of our most physically demanding industries, meatpacking– an industry that historically has relied on immigrants. The workers were doing nothing more than striving to support themselves and their families. Rather than treat them with dignity, Ms Rose and her colleagues chose to grind them down further. They took advantage of the workers’ lack of resources, limited rights, and lack of powerful friends.
Even if that were not the case, Ms Rose and her team helped in expending vast resources to no useful end – a massive raid, the arrest hundreds of people, negotiated pleas, all done with cattle-call trials in cattle-ground trailers, and jailed hundreds of people for five months each, after which they were deported. Why did they bother? The workers were deportable anyway and the same end could have been achieved without all of the shameful pageantry. That, of course, would not have given Ms. Rose and her colleagues the chance to splash themselves all over the headlines and build their statistics. Postville was a massive failure on many levels, not the least of which was a failure of prosecutorial judgment. The fact that Ms Rose played a “central role” in this travesty is very disturbing. Her role in Postville should render her unfit to be a viable candidate to serve as a USA in the Obama Administration.
* Wasn’t Ms Rose just following orders from “Washington”?
The Nuremburg defense is clearly not appropriate for a USA candidate. Underlying Ms. Rose’s assertion that she was “just following orders” is a frightening misconception regarding her role as a prosecutor. The attempt to minimize her leadership role in developing the Postville plan and the execution of the prosecutorial operation speaks volumes about her readiness to assume the responsibilities of the USA position. Ms Rose and her supporters have misjudged Postville as another “notch on her belt” and rather as a dark stain on her record.
In Postville, Ms Rose was acting as an officer of the court and as a federal prosecutor. Ethically and morally, her hands were not tied once she was approached about developing and executing the Postville prosecutorial plan. Even if the “raid was initiated by Washington,” as Chief Deputy of the Criminal Division and as an Assistant USA, Ms Rose had several options as the “rough draft” of the Postville plan was given to her for development and execution. It was her responsibility to carefully review and scrutinize the plan for any ethical or constitutional due process problems. The ethical and constitutional issues created by the plan and its execution were numerous and obvious to even a novice criminal attorney. Either Ms. Rose was not able to see the problems and understand the numerous defects in the plan or she chose to overlook them and push ahead anyway. Either conclusion raises serious question about her judgment and fitness to be an USA at this point in her career.
USAs and Assistant USAs alike are regularly approached by both state and federal law enforcement officials and requested to initiate federal charges in questionable cases. The USA and the Assistant USA are under no obligation to bring charges and prosecute a case if they believe there are ethical or constitutional defects present. In fact, the exact opposite is true. A USA and an Assistant USA are both obligated to raise any and all ethical and constitutional issues present in a case no matter who initiated the case or investigation. USAs and Assistant USAs are the gatekeepers of our constitutional rights to be protected from overly aggressive law enforcement officers or politically motivated prosecutions. If the USAs or Assistant USAs are unable to correct any ethical or constitutional issue identified, they are obligated to not bring charges, step away from the case, and raise the issues at a higher level of authority or even resign.
Hard to do? Yes, absolutely, but it happens every day in USA offices across the country. The person who refuses to prosecute on the grounds of ethics and constitutional concerns is just the kind of person we need as an USA. Such a refusal shows the maturity, wisdom and ethical standards we should expect from a federal prosecutor. There are many such attorneys in the practice of law and in the Department of Justice. Last year, for example, four senior Assistant USAs in the Minnesota USA office chose to step down from their managerial roles after identifying ethical issues with the USA and her method of operation. Hard to do? Yes, but they were right to do it and the USA resigned soon afterwards.
Regrettably rather than display leadership by standing up to federal law enforcement officials or by identifying the ethical and constitutional issues present, she instead “jumped on-board” the case with both feet and worked with vigor to enact the plan that was ultimately executed. The Postville operation serves as a gage of her legal maturity, judgment and ability to assume the leadership role required by the USA position. The record clearly shows her performance failed to serve the ends of justice and her temperament was not up to the challenge.
Amazingly, Ms Rose was quoted as saying any criticisms over the court proceedings at National Cattle Congress have come from people outside the process. First of all, that’s not true. Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas was the federal interpreter at Postville and was so upset by what he saw that he blew the whistle on the on the sham proceedings. Second, Ms. Rose and her colleagues worked to close off the process to anyone who might have slowed it down, such as immigration attorneys who actually understood the consequences of what the public defenders were advising their clients (all 17 of them per attorney) to do. Thus her complaint that any criticism came from “outside the process” is disingenuous at best. It also ignores the well-written statement attorney Rockne Cole provided Congresswoman Lofgren and her committee. This statement details Ms Rose’s “central role” in the Postville prosecutions. After hearing Ms Rose’s briefing on what was going to happen, Mr. Cole readily spotted numerous ethical problems with the operation and declined to participate. Third, Ms. Rose has chosen to ignore the numerous objective investigations that have severely criticized her prosecutorial operation as “clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt.” In sum, her critique of Postville lacks insight and judgment. Here twelve years of experience in the Northern District office appear to have stunted the development of her leadership and judgment.
“Kangaroo courts” was Congressman Baca’s description of the prosecutions Ms Rose called a “ton of good work.”
With a shaking voice, Baca recounted the emotional testimony of mothers who had to explain to their children why they were wearing ankle bracelets. After being arrested in a May 12 immigration raid and charged with identity theft, they now have nothing to do but wait for their court dates and deportation orders which, in some cases, won’t be until 2009. In the meantime, Baca says, “These women are left captive, wearing ankle bracelets. They can’t work, they can’t support their children, and they can’t leave.”
What made the Iowa raids different, Baca says, was that immigrant workers faced criminal charges of identity theft, were processed en masse and coerced into pleading guilty. In other words, he argues, they were “denied due process” and tried in “kangaroo courts.”
Baca, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told reporters from the U.S. ethnic media that he and his colleagues are dedicated to finding out how this happened “in America, where we have the Bill of Rights.”
(http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=ce7953ad4149539e7a24dee3e7809fc6)
* Will Ms Rose “be grilled” regarding her role in Postville at a Congress confirmation hearing?
No. Senator Harkin has sent her name to the White House Legal Counsel and US Attorney General. (While many Senators have released their recommendation letters to the public, Senator Harkin has chosen not to do so). A background check will be conducted by the FBI as part the White House review of Ms. Rose’s potential nomination. If approved by President Obama, Ms. Rose’s nomination will then be sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee where her “packet” will be reviewed along with other nominees for USA appointments. At some point, the Committee will consider and vote on her nomination. This process does not include a hearing in which questions are posed to her. If the Committee approves her nomination, her name will be voted on by the full Senate. Once a Senator makes a recommendation, most of this process is pro forma. The only way to stop Ms. Rose’s appointment is to raise a big red flag with the Obama administration in hopes they will decide not to nominate her for the USA appointment.
Conclusion: Ms Rose is not ready to be the next United States Attorney of the Northern District of Iowa!
The fact Ms Rose views the Postville prosecutions as a success story is very troubling.
Her support for the operation from the beginning and now even in hindsight raises serious questions about her ethical standards, judgment, maturity, and ability to handle aggressive federal agents’ intent on building statistics for political and career building purposes. In Postville, she faced numerous challenges but displayed none of the sensitiveness to fair play and human decency required to protect against the abuse of power. Instead, she worked with vigor to bring the full force of the federal government down upon the downtrodden workers of Agriprocessors even as it was known to her and the government these same workers were in fact victims of an unscrupulous employer. Ms Rose clearly is not up to handling the leadership challenge the USA position requires at this point in her career.
Senator Harkin’s pick was made with no input from the Civil Rights groups or the Hispanic community. His pick is a great insult to us all who care about Justice.
“Nominee for U.S. attorney under fire for role in Postville raid” (Waterloo Courier, April 5, 2009) http://www.wcfcourier.com/arti...
Thankfully, top lawyers in Iowa are fighting her nomination but they could use some help!!
Please contact the groups listed below and ask them to ask President Obama to stop Stephanie Rose’s nomination:
- The Hispanic House Caucus: chc@mail.house
- The Hispanic National Bar Association: dcabrera@hnba.com
- ACLU: media@dcaclu.org
- American Immigration Lawyers Association: executive@aila.org
Please help stop Ms Rose’s nomination!
Tony
