[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 154 (Thursday, October 22, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             RECOGNIZING THE RETIREMENT OF THOMAS J. ORLOFF

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 22, 2009

  Mr. STARK. Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate and honor Thomas J. 
Orloff on his recent retirement as district attorney of Alameda County. 
A third generation resident of Alameda County, his 15 years as district 
attorney capped an extraordinary career of 40 years of service as a 
prosecutor on behalf of the people of both Alameda County and 
California. Mr. Orloff joined the Alameda County District Attorney's 
office in 1970 after graduating from the University of California's 
Boalt Hall School of Law. He distinguished himself as a trial lawyer, 
prosecuting many high profile cases including leaders of the Black 
Panthers and the notorious BGF prison gang. In addition to his trial 
prosecutions, Mr. Orloff served in many supervisory and administrative 
capacities including 5 years as the chief assistant district attorney.
  Tom Orloff was elected district attorney, without opposition, in June 
1994 and has been re-elected in June 1998, June 2002, and in June 2006, 
all unopposed. During his tenure, he established special units to 
emphasize prosecutions of domestic violence, stalking, gang violence, 
real estate fraud, and abuse of the elderly while expanding ongoing 
efforts to combat public assistance fraud, sexual assault and consumer 
and environmental crimes. Unlike most elected district attorneys, Tom 
recently personally tried and obtained the conviction of a street gang 
member who murdered San Leandro police officer Dan Niemi.
  In addition to his work in Alameda County, Tom has given his time to 
the California and national prosecutors associations, serving as 
president and on the board of directors of the California District 
Attorney's Association and as a member of the board of directors of the 
National District Attorney's Association. Among many legal honors, he 
has been selected as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. 
Active in Alameda County as well, Tom has for many years served on the 
board and as treasurer of the One Hundred Club which provides financial 
support to the survivors of Alameda County police officers and 
firefighters who are killed in the line of duty and on the advisory 
board of the Boys and Girls Club of Oakland.
  Most importantly, I would like to commend Tom Orloff on his 
stewardship of the finest prosecutor's office in the country. Every 
day, since taking office in January 1995 Tom sat down behind the same 
desk Earl Warren used when he served as Alameda County District 
Attorney from 1925-1939. He proudly displayed on his office wall a 
framed indictment signed by both Warren and another Thomas Orloff, 
Tom's grandfather, then the foreman of the Alameda County grand jury. 
As only the fifth Alameda County District Attorney since Warren, Tom 
has guided a prosecutor's office that has seen remarkable stability and 
has been characterized by its innovation, creativity, and remarkable 
commitment to the highest ethical standards.
  Prosecutors are the only lawyers who are ethically bound to serve two 
masters. The public prosecutor, as Justice Sutherland put it in his 
United States Supreme Court opinion: ``is the representative not of an 
ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation 
to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at 
all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not 
that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he 
is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the 
twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence 
suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor--indeed, he should 
do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to 
strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper 
methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use 
every legitimate means to bring about a just one.'' (Berger v. United 
States (1935) 295 U.S. 78, 88.)
  Like Earl Warren and the four others who separate them, Tom Orloff 
has demonstrated a profound, personal commitment to the ethical 
administration of justice. More than anything else, this commitment, on 
the part of the elected district attorney, to ethics in criminal 
prosecution sets the Alameda County District Attorney's office apart 
from the rest. I know that Tom, while proud of his many personal 
accomplishments, takes his greatest pride and satisfaction in the 
office of the Alameda County District Attorney. In public life we are 
all too often confronted with many whose sole purpose in seeking or 
attaining public office often seems to be self-aggrandizement. Tom is 
that rare public servant who truly has served the public and who has 
put the interest of his office ahead of his own.
  Tom has demonstrated courage and independence in making many hard and 
occasionally unpopular choices during his tenure as district attorney, 
authorizing the prosecution several years ago of several officers of 
the Oakland Police Department, known as the ``Riders'' who were accused 
of a variety of crimes including robbing, kidnapping and framing 
street-level drug dealers. Most recently, Tom filed murder charges 
against a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer who shot and killed a 
BART passenger. The shooting was videotaped and received a very high 
level of publicity. This is reportedly the first murder charge lodged 
against an on-duty police officer in California history.
  It should come as no surprise to learn that Tom Orloff has long led 
the way in hiring women and minority lawyers. Under his watch, and due 
to his personal commitment, the Alameda County District Attorney's 
office is now one of the most diverse prosecutor's offices in the 
country--a special challenge considering the debt most minority law 
school graduates carry and the small salaries starting prosecutors 
earn.
  One of Tom's former colleagues wrote, many years before she became an 
associate justice of the California Supreme Court, ``If our nation of 
laws is to remain both strong and free, we must have system of criminal 
justice in which every citizen can have confidence. The weight of 
maintaining this confidence falls on the shoulders of those lawyers who 
walk into court to represent the People. It is, as it should be, the 
highest calling of an American advocate.'' (Carol Corrigan, On 
Prosecutorial Ethics (1986) 13 Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 
537.)
  I have known Tom Orloff for many years. In the time he has served as 
Alameda County's district attorney he has given me the highest 
confidence that the administration of criminal justice in Alameda 
County was in the most capable hands possible. To me, he epitomized the 
prosecutor who always sought justice first. In determining whether to 
initiate criminal charges he always made what he felt was the right 
decision, not the popular decision. In the trial courtroom, he fought 
hard and he fought fair. More importantly, he instilled that ethic in 
all of his prosecutors. As a result, I share with the citizens of 
Alameda County an enduring and deeply felt confidence in the work of 
our criminal justice system. I wish Tom and his wife Pam a long, 
healthy and productive retirement.

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