Attorney General: Benjamin R. Civiletti
Benjamin Richard Civiletti was born in Peekskill, New York, on July 17, 1935. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1957 and his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1961. He was a law clerk for Judge W. Calvin Chesnut of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland during 1961 and 1962 and served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland from September 1962 to October 1964. Civiletti was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1961 and to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1965. From 1964 to 1968, he was an associate with the Baltimore law firm Venable, Baetjer & Howard. He became a partner in 1969 and head of the litigation department in 1971, specializing in both criminal and civil litigation. Before becoming Attorney General, Civiletti held two key positions in the Department of Justice, as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division from March 10, 1977, to May 16, 1978, and as Deputy Attorney General from May 16, 1978, to August 15, 1979.
Civiletti was sworn in as the 73rd Attorney General of the United States on August 16, 1979, under President Jimmy Carter, and served in that office until January 19, 1981. Civiletti then returned to Baltimore and rejoined his former firm. He served on many local and state-wide task forces and investigations, and, in 2008, he chaired the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment. His community work included serving as a member of numerous bar associations, chair of the Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association, and fellow of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation. Civiletti died on October 16, 2022, in Lutherville, Maryland.
William F. Draper was born in 1912 in Hopedale, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard and studied at the National Academy of Design with Leon Kroll, at the Cape Cod School of Art with Charles Hawthorne and Henry Hensche, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Arts Students League in New York with John Corbino, sculpture with George Demetrios, and later in France and Spain. His portraits of prominent Americans include Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, Senator Leverett Saltonstall, and Admirals Chester W. Nimitz and William F. Halsey, Jr. It is unknown when Draper's portrait of Attorney General Civiletti was completed. He died on October 26, 2003, in New York City.