Word: prosecutors
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Walsh probe on the ticklish issue of its legal validity. The Walsh investigation was challenged two weeks ago in U.S. district court by attorneys for fired National Security Council Aide Oliver North. They asserted that the broad mandate given to the court-appointed special prosecutor under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act is a violation of the constitutional separation of powers...
Laurance D. Myers died September 17 from cardiac arrest while receiving emergency treatment for severe wounds to his chest, abdomen and wrists. The County Prosecutor later determined that there was no evidence to contradict the hypothesis of suicide...
...first came from Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, whose attorneys filed suit in U.S. District Court to stop Walsh's probe. Their argument: the broad mandate given to the court-appointed special prosecutor is a violation of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. A day later, attorneys for former Reagan Aide Michael Deaver, under investigation for his lobbying activities after his departure from the White House in May 1985, used an almost identical ploy to halt indictments being sought against him by Independent Counsel Whitney North Seymour Jr. The challenges are more than just delaying tactics; in the words...
...passing the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, Congress sought to avoid a replay of 1973's Saturday Night Massacre, in which President Nixon had Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox fired. The act calls for the prosecutor to be appointed by a panel of three federal judges and not to be subject to presidential approval. But some legal observers argue that the provision has usurped powers that properly reside in the Executive Branch. "The special counsel is a distortion of the Constitution," says Washington Lawyer Ray Randolph. Philip Lacovara, counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor, agrees, partly because the position...
...need for an independent conflict-of-interest investigation in the Executive Branch," says University of Texas Law Professor Harold Bruff. "The courts will recognize that need." The Administration, meanwhile, is in an awkward position. Attorney General Edwin Meese and other Reagan Justice Department officials have publicly opposed the special prosecutor, yet they may find it difficult to support North and Deaver without opening themselves to charges of fostering a cover-up. Says one Justice Department official: "In this political climate, I don't think we can side with them as much as we want...