Ted Wells

Defense Attorney Ted Wells (center) was among the panelists.

MANHATTAN – Days before a House Judiciary Subcommittee launches hearings on the subject, legal experts at an event hosted by New York University’s School of Law considered whether sufficient checks and balances govern the process by which federal U.S. Attorneys select federal monitors to oversee deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) of corporations.

They also assessed in general the role of politics in prosecution, both at the state and federal level.

“No one should be exercising power without appropriate constraints,” said Michelle Hirshman, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York - but how the government would implement depoliticizing changes to federal monitoring contracts remains a question mark as Congressional lawmakers prepare for hearings.

The multi-paneled discussion unfolded against the backdrop of a gubernatorial bid on the other side of the Hudson River by former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who during his tenure as New Jersey’s top cop appointed former Attorney General John Ashcroft to a no-bid federal monitoring job potentially worth up to $52 million.

Michael Chertoff with President George W. Bush in a 2005 White House photograph.

UNION – Talk to people in New Jersey’s legal profession and no one denies that what Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff perhaps lacks in charisma or courtroom presence, he compensates for with something more fundamental:  profound powers of reason. 

“Going back 20 years, he was a great lawyer, a brilliant lawyer – hard but fair,” said attorney Ted Wells.

His friends in the New Jersey political world say Chertoff’s a creature of hard analysis not politics.  “This is one of the brilliant legal minds of the country,” said Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), who introduced Chertoff today at Kean University, where the Homeland Security Secretary and author of the USA Patriot Act reflected on his three-year term in the Bush administration.

His tenure included his grim mea culpa in front of Congress following what he acknowledged was his department’s 2005 failure to respond effectively to Hurricane Katrina. 

But Katrina didn’t come up today as a cross-section of audience members in friendly fashion mostly picked the Elizabeth native’s brain about general public policy during the question and answer portion of his presentation.

Ted Wells

Following a recommendation by former Gov. Brendan Byrne that the incoming Obama administration consider criminal attorney Joe Hayden for the office of U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, one of Hayden’s best-known peers this week also endorsed Hayden.

Criminal attorney Ted Wells said he believes the Hoboken-based Hayden would be an excellent choice – the question at this stage is whether the veteran attorney would take the job.

“I think Joe would bring a stature to the office because for a long time he has been viewed as one of the top lawyers in the state,” said Wells. “He has served as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, everyone knows him and everyone respects him.”

Seen with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer this morning, just prior to his announcement that he will resign on March 17, was criminal defense attorney Ted Wells, a New Jersey resident who has played a key role in state Democratic politics for years. Wells has represented several prominent politicians as they faces legal battles, including U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, and Scooter Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney’s former Chief of Staff.