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Ken Starr

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This article is about the lawyer. For the rapper, see Kenn Starr (rapper).
Kenneth Winston Starr
38th United States Solicitor General
In office
May, 1989 – January, 1993
PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush
Preceded byCharles Fried
Succeeded byDrew S. Days, III
Personal details
Born (1946-07-21) July 21, 1946 (age 78)
Lockett, Texas
Political partyRepublican

Kenneth Winston Starr (born July 21, 1946) is an American lawyer and former judge and solicitor general who was appointed to the Office of the Independent Counsel to investigate the suicide death of the deputy White House counsel Vince Foster and the Whitewater land transactions by President Bill Clinton. He later submitted to Congress the Starr Report, which opened the door for Clinton's impeachment based on charges arising from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He currently serves as dean of Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California. He is also currently working to defend the constitutionality of the same-sex marriage ban in California.

Early life

Kenneth Starr was born in Lockett, a small town near Vernon, the seat of Wilbarger County in north Texas. His father was a Church of Christ minister.

Education

He first attended Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, where he belonged to the Young Democrats[1] and wrote in support of Vietnam protesters[2], but transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1968. During his time at The George Washington University, Starr was a member of Delta Phi Epsilon[3], a Professional Foreign Service Fraternity. Starr worked for the Southwestern Company[4]. He later attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, (M.A, 1969) and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, (J.D., 1973). Starr did not go to Vietnam, classified 4-F, due to a case of psoriasis.[5]

After his graduation from Duke, he became a clerk for U.S. Circuit Judge David W. Dyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit(1973-1974), then for Chief Justice Warren Burger (1975-1977).

He joined the staff of the Los Angeles-based law firm Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher in 1977, working out of their Washington office. He was appointed counselor to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith in 1981.

Federal Judge and Solicitor General

Starr was appointed to be a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Ronald Reagan and served from 1983 to 1989. He was United States Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush.

Early 1990s activities

When the Senate Ethics Committee needed someone to review Republican Senator Bob Packwood's diaries, the committee chose Starr, and he was praised by Republicans and Democrats alike for his fairness and decency. In 1990, Starr was the leading candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court nomination after William Brennan's retirement. He encountered a strong resistance from the Department of Justice leadership which feared that Starr might not be reliably conservative as a Supreme Court justice. President George H. W. Bush nominated David Souter instead of Starr.[6] Starr also considered running for the United States Senate from Virginia in 1994 against incumbent Chuck Robb, but opted against opposing Oliver North for the Republican nomination.

Time as Independent Counsel

Whitewater

Main article: Whitewater controversy

In August 1994 Starr was appointed by a three-judge panel to continue the Whitewater investigation, replacing Robert B. Fiske, who had been appointed by the Attorney General prior to the reenactment of the Independent Counsel law. The law conferred broad investigative powers on Starr and the other independent counsels named to investigate the administration, including the right to subpoena nearly anyone who might have relevant information. Starr would later receive authority to conduct additional investigations, including the firing of White House Travel Office personnel, potential political abuse of confidential FBI files,[7], Madison Guaranty, Rose Law Firm, Paula Jones law suit and, most notoriously, possible perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up President Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

The Special Division, the three-judge panel that named Starr, was led by Judge David Sentelle, an appointee of President Reagan and a protege of Senator Jesse Helms. On July 14, 1994, Helms, fellow Republican senator Lauch Faircloth, and Sentelle met for lunch in the Senate cafeteria. All three initially denied having discussed the upcoming independent counsel appointment, though later Sentelle admitted that it "may" have come up in conversation. Sentelle also acknowledged that he was looking for a Republican "who had been active on the other side of the political fence" to head the new investigation, in keeping with the tradition of such independent counsels as Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski (then known as special prosecutors). One of the other judges on the panel was a Democratic appointee to the bench; he registered no dissent over Starr's appointment.

On August 5, Starr was named independent counsel. The Special Division's written statement emphasized that the judges found no fault with the investigation up to that point by Robert Fiske, a moderate Republican appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno, but the newly reenacted law, signed by President Clinton, said that Independent Counsels must be chosen by the three-judge panel and not by the administration under investigation. Although Starr and other independent counsels were later criticized as unaccountable and unstoppable, the statute gave the Attorney General and the Special Division the authority to remove an independent counsel, and the Special Division used it in at least one instance.

Starr took the job part-time and remained active with his law firm, Kirkland & Ellis[8]. This too had been the norm with previous independent counsels, and the statute expressly permitted it. As time went on, however, Starr was increasingly criticized for alleged conflicts of interest stemming from the connection. Kirkland, like other major law firms, represents clients in litigation with the government, including tobacco companies and auto manufacturers. The firm itself at the time was being sued by the Resolution Trust Company, a government agency tangentially involved in the Whitewater matter, and Starr had on one occasion talked with lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing President Clinton over an alleged sexual assault. Starr told the lawyers why he believed that presidents are not immune to civil suit. When this constitutional issue ultimately reached the Supreme Court, the justices unanimously agreed.

Lewinsky scandal - Paula Jones lawsuit

Main articles: Lewinsky scandal and Clinton v. Jones

In his deposition for the Paula Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky. Based on the evidence provided by Linda Tripp, a blue dress with Clinton's semen, Kenneth Starr concluded that this sworn testimony was false and perjurious.

During the deposition in the Jones case, Clinton was asked "Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court." The definition included contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of a person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of that person, any contact of the genitals or anus of another person, or contact of one's genitals or anus and any part of another person's body either directly or through clothing.[9][10][11] The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the agreed definition. Clinton flatly denied having sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky.[12] Later, at the Starr Grand Jury, Clinton stated that he believed the definition of sexual relations agreed upon for the Jones deposition excluded his receiving oral sex.

Starr's investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton, with whom Starr shared Time's Man of the Year designation for 1998. Despite his impeachment, the President was acquitted in the subsequent trial before the United States Senate and was not removed from office.

Vince Foster

Main articles: Vincent Foster and Arkansas Project

On October 10, 1997, Starr's Report on the death of deputy White House counsel, Vince Foster, drafted largely by Starr's deputy Brett Kavanaugh was released to the public by the Special Division. The report agrees with the findings of previous independent counsel Robert Fiske that Foster indeed committed suicide at Fort Marcy Park, and that his suicide was caused primarily by undiagnosed and untreated depression. As CNN explained on February 28, 1997, "The [Starr] report refutes claims by conservative political organizations that Foster was the victim of a murder plot and coverup," but "despite those findings, right-wing political groups have continued to allege that there was more to the death and that the president and first lady tried to cover it up."[13] CNN also noted that organizations pushing the murder theory included the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, and Accuracy in Media, supported in part by Scaife's foundation.[14] Scaife's reporter on the Whitewater matter, Christopher Ruddy, was a frequent critic of Starr's handling of the case.[15]


Second thoughts

Starr expressed regret for ever having asked the Justice Department to oversee the Lewinsky investigation, saying "the most fundamental thing that could have been done differently" would have been for somebody else to have investigated the matter.[16]

Starr Reports

As with many controversial figures, Kenneth Starr was the subject of often biased political satire. Both the book, And the Horse He Rode in On, by James Carville, and the stage play, Starr’s on Broadway, by Eric Zaccar, attempt to add a comedic, arguably negative light to Mr. Starr’s time as special prosecutor. And of course, his opposing liberal media might contend that that Mr. Starr’s own lengthy and detailed Starr Report, that chronicled his investigation of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, was one of the most extensive and tasteless jokes ever perpetrated on the American people.

Post-Independent Counsel activities

After five years as independent counsel, Starr resigned and returned to private practice as an appellate lawyer and a visiting professor at New York University and the George Mason University School of Law. Starr worked as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, specializing in litigation. He was one of the lead attorneys in a class-action lawsuit filed by a coalition of liberal and conservative groups (including the ACLU and the NRA) against the regulations created by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known informally as McCain-Feingold Act. In the case, Starr argued that the law is an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech.

On April 6, 2004, he was appointed dean of Pepperdine University's School of Law. He originally accepted another Pepperdine post in 1996; however, he withdrew from the appointment in 1998, several months after the Lewinsky controversy erupted. Critics charged that there was a conflict of interest due to substantial donations to Pepperdine from billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, a Clinton critic who funded many media outlets attacking the president. (Scaife's money, however, supported the Foster-was-murdered theory, according to CNN, and Scaife defunded The American Spectator after it endorsed Starr's conclusion of suicide and mocked a Scaife-aided book.[14]) In 2004, some five years after President Clinton's impeachment, Starr was again offered a Pepperdine position and this time accepted it.

Death Penalty Cases

In 2005, Starr worked to overturn the death sentence of Robin Lovitt, who was on Virginia's Death Row for murdering a man during a robbery in 1998. Starr provided his services to Lovitt pro bono. On October 3, 2005, the Supreme Court denied certiorari. (Lovitt was granted clemency and had his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole, on November 29, 2005, by Governor Mark Warner of Virginia.)

On January 26, 2006, the defense team of convicted murderer Michael Morales (which included Starr) sent letters to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger requesting clemency for Morales[17]. Letters purportedly from the jurors who determined Morales's death sentence were included in the package sent to Schwarzenegger.

Sarbanes-Oxley

Ken Starr announced that he will challenge the portion of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which gives authority to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)[18].

Morse v. Frederick

Main article: Morse v. Frederick

On May 4, 2006, Starr announced that he would represent the Juneau, Alaska school board in its appeal to the United States Supreme Court in a case brought by a former student, Joseph Frederick. The former student unfurled a banner at a school sponsored event saying "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" as the Olympic torch was passing through Juneau, prior to arriving in Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2002 Winter Olympics. The board decided to suspend the student. The student then sued and won at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which stated that the board violated the student's first amendment right to free speech[19]. On August 28, 2006, Starr filed a writ of certiorari for a hearing with the Supreme Court.[20] On June 21, 2007, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court ruled in favor of Starr's client, finding that "a principal may, restrict student speech at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use."[21]

Blackwater Security Consulting v. Nordan (No. 06-857)

Starr continues to represent Blackwater in a case involving the deaths of four contractors killed in Fallujah, Iraq in March 2004.[22]

California Proposition 8 post-election lawsuits

On December 19, 2008, Proposition 8 supporters named Starr to represent them in post-election lawsuits to be heard by the Supreme Court of California. The lawsuits concern the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in the state before Proposition 8 passed and overturning the proposition altogether.[23]

Bibliography

  • First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life, Kenneth W. Starr, Grand Central Publishing, October 2003, (ISBN 0446691305)

See also

References

  • Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
  • Conason, Joe and Lyons, Gene (2000). The Hunting of the President. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 0-312-27319-3.
  • Greenburg, Jan Crawford (2006). Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court. Penguin Books, ISBN 978-1-59420-101-0.
  • Schmidt, Susan and Weisskopf, Michael (2000). Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-019485-5.


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| #default = 1946 births

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  1. ^ Washingtonpost.com Special Report: Clinton Accused
  2. ^ "Kenneth Star in the Bison at Harding College," Political Cartel
  3. ^ Eta VI Directory
  4. ^ USATODAY.com - College students learn from job of hard knocks
  5. ^ Ken Starr Would Not Be Denied
  6. ^ "Supreme Conflict" by J. Crawford Greenburg, pp. 89-93
  7. ^ Appendix To Report On The Death Of Vincent W. Foster, Jr.
  8. ^ http://www.kirkland.com/ourFirm/lawyerBio.aspx?InfiniumH4ID=4963&employeeH4ID=24771&attorneyH4ID=9101
  9. ^ Clinton's Deposition in the Paula Jones Case. January 17, 1998.
  10. ^ King, J. New Details Of Clinton's Jones Deposition Leaked CNN March 5, 1998
  11. ^ Kangas, K, ed. Perjury About Sexual Relations in the Paula Jones Deposition Liberalism Resurgent
  12. ^ Starr, K The Starr Report. MSNBC
  13. ^ Report: Starr Rules Out Foul Play In Foster Death CNN Feb. 23, 1997.
  14. ^ a b Who Is Richard Mellon Scaife?
  15. ^ What's New in the Whitewater Archives?
  16. ^ Media Matters - AP allowed Starr to dodge blame for going after Clinton on Lewinsky
  17. ^ Ken Starr asks governor to spare condemned killer
  18. ^ Ken Starr to Lead Legal Challenge to the PCAOB
  19. ^ The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Starr to take on appeal over "bong" banner
  20. ^ Juneau School Board Petition
  21. ^ Morse v. Frederick
  22. ^ Law.com: High Court Asked to Explore Contractor Liability for Deaths in Iraq
  23. ^ http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_11273340 Brown: Invalidate Prop. 8]
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