Northern District of Alabama Press Release


	UNITED STATES ATTORNEY JOYCE WHITE VANCE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE			CONTACT: PEGGY SANFORD
	OCTOBER 26, 2009			PHONE: (205) 244-2020
	www.usdoj.gov/usao/aln			FAX: (205) 244-2171

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance to his nationwide advisory committee of U.S. attorneys is a chance for the new U.S. attorney in Birmingham to have a real voice in policy decisions made in Washington, D.C.

Holder today announced his appointment of Vance and eight other new U.S. attorneys to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys (AGAC). They will serve two-year terms. Of the new appointees, Vance is the only member from the territory covered by the federal Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

“This is an opportunity for our viewpoints, our concerns and our practices to have a direct effect on decisions made by the Department of Justice,” Vance said. Washington is where the policies are made, but “it is extremely important that they have input from the field,” she said.

Members of the AGAC report to the attorney general, through the deputy attorney general, and offer advice and counsel on policy, management and operational issues impacting the offices of the U.S. attorneys.

Vance said there are no set parameters for the committee and it will advise on whatever matters the attorney general requests. A number of subcommittees cover a wide range of procedural and substantive issues that guide federal prosecutors in their practice.

Vance will co-chair the AGAC’s newly formed Criminal Procedures Committee with U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin of Vermont. Part of that work will involve reviewing prosecutors’ obligations to provide discovery to defendants in criminal matters, and to look at issues in federal sentencing, she said.

            Vance said she also looks forward to the opportunity to work with U.S. attorneys across the country in areas like environmental, public corruption and civil rights matters “to ensure we are aggressively prosecuting cases in these areas.”

            “We have made a great deal of progress in civil rights here,” she said, “but we still have a lot more to do.”

Vance said it is an honor to be appointed to the AGAC. “My job is to work hard to make sure we have a positive influence on how the nation’s justice is conducted.”

Vance was one of the first five appointees to U.S. Attorney positions in the Obama administration, and was confirmed by the Senate on Aug. 7.

Prior to becoming U.S. Attorney for the 31-county Northern District of Alabama, Vance was chief of the office’s Appellate Division for five years, with three more years as a lawyer in that division. Before that, she was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Criminal Division for 10 years. Vance made frequent appearances before the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, including a string of cases exploring the continuing vitality of the federal sentencing guidelines and the nature of reasonableness in federal sentencing. She has successfully prosecuted public corruption, white collar, narcotics, firearm and civil rights cases.

She participated in the investigation of Eric Robert Rudolph after the bombing of the New Woman All Women Clinic in Birmingham, and in the investigation of a string of fires at rural, predominately African American churches in the early 1990s.

Vance grew up in Monterey Park, Calif., just east of Los Angeles. High-school debating won her a scholarship to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1982 with a degree in political science. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1985. After initially practicing with Arant, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin and Kahn in Washington, D.C., she came to Birmingham where she worked for Bradley, Arant, Rose and White from 1988 until 1991, when she joined the U.S. Attorney’s office.