[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 15, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2962-S2963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 REMEMBERING STEPHEN ``STEVE'' H. SACHS

 Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, next Tuesday, June 21, there will 
be a memorial service to honor Stephen H. Sachs, who died on January 12 
at his home in Baltimore at the age of 87. Steve Sachs was U.S. 
Attorney for Maryland for 3 years and Maryland's Attorney General for 
two terms. He was one of the finest lawyers in the Nation--a proud son 
of Maryland, a proud son of Baltimore. He was an indefatigable, ever 
optimistic Orioles fan. He had a brilliant intellect and a sparkling 
sense of humor.
  Steve was born in Baltimore on January 31, 1934. His father was 
director of the Baltimore Jewish Council and a labor arbitrator, and 
his mother was a homemaker. Steve received a bachelor's degree in 1954 
from Haverford College and then served in the Army from 1955 to 1957. 
He received a Fulbright scholarship to study at the University of 
Oxford in England. He received his law degree from Yale Law School in 
1960. He worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the 
District of Maryland. In 1967, then-President Lyndon Johnson appointed 
Steve as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, a position he 
held until 1970.
  Steve prosecuted cases involving white-collar crime and public 
corruption. In 1968, he prosecuted Vietnam war protesters known as the 
Catonsville Nine, Roman Catholic anti-war activists who broke into the 
Selective Service office in Catonsville, MD, in an attempt to destroy 
draft records. It was a high-profile case. The Rev. Daniel Berrigan and 
his brother, the Rev. Philip Berrigan, led activists on a raid at Draft 
Board 33 in Catonsville. Steve secured a guilty verdict in Federal 
court for destroying government property.
  Fifty years later, in a retrospective article in the ``Baltimore 
Sun'', Steve wrote with a searing honesty, ``I believed then, and 
believe now, that the nine were brave men and women who acted out of a 
conviction that the war in Vietnam was profoundly evil. But I believed 
then, and I believe now, that the conduct of the nine--particularly 
their insistence that their action at Catonsville should have been 
condoned because they were `right'--offends both the rule of law and a 
fundamental tenet of the American democracy.'' I think that statement 
captures Steve's character perfectly.
  Steve was in private practice from 1970 to 1978 when he ran an 
outsider campaign to become Maryland's Attorney General. He didn't 
align himself with any gubernatorial candidate, which had been the 
practice. He stated, ``The attorney general should be independent. The 
attorney general should be the people's lawyer.'' After several public 
corruption scandals, Marylanders appreciated Steve's unquestioned 
integrity and were receptive to his activist, reform-oriented campaign. 
He served two terms as Attorney General and practically reinvented the 
position. He established a strong Consumer Protection Division within 
the Office of Attorney General that assisted Marylanders against 
corporate abuse. As the State's Attorney General, he argued three cases 
before the U.S. Supreme Court--and won all three. Steve's 8 years as 
Attorney General overlapped with my service as speaker of the house of 
delegates, where I had the benefit of Steven's excellent counsel.
  In 1986, Steve decided to run for Governor, but he lost the 
Democratic primary to then-Baltimore mayor William Donald Schaefer. 
After that defeat, Steve returned to private practice as a partner in 
the Washington, DC, office of Wilmer-Hale, then known as Wilmer, Cutler 
& Pickering. He retired from the firm in 1999.
  Steve's political career may have officially ``ended'' when he was 
just 52, but over the years, he became an elder statesman of Maryland 
politics. As his former colleagues at Wilmer-Hale said, ``Steve was an 
elegant writer, a powerful advocate and an extremely accomplished trial 
lawyer. He was a generous partner, colleague and mentor. He taught a 
generation of lawyers how to write a brief, take a deposition and try a 
case . . . He was a mensch.''
  Steve's passion for justice never waned. After he retired from 
Wilmer-Hale, he joined the Public Justice Center, where he had a 
significant impact on the development of the center's Appellate 
Advocacy Project. Steve was a passionate advocate of the civil right to 
counsel movement, helping to establish the National Coalition for a 
Civil Right to Counsel. In 2008, then-Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley 
appointed Steve to head an independent

[[Page S2963]]

review of the Maryland State Police, which had infiltrated activist 
groups that were lawfully protesting against the death penalty and the 
war in Iraq.
  Steve may be gone, but his legacy is firmly established. Last Friday, 
I had the honor of attending the investiture of Erek Baron as the first 
Black U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. Erek is just one of 
Steve's countless proteges carrying on his mission. Erek said, ``Steve 
Sachs was one of the most respected public servants in Maryland's 
history and a personal mentor to me and many others.''
  Deuteronomy 16:20 implores us, ``Justice, justice you shall pursue . 
. .''. That was Steve Sachs' guiding principle. He did all he could to 
make the world a better place. It wasn't always easy or comfortable, 
but he understood the importance of justice under the law. I respected 
his legal passion, and I am grateful that he shared it with generations 
of Maryland attorneys as a mentor and a friend. On behalf of the 
Senate, I send my condolences to his daughter Elisabeth Sachs, his son 
Leon Sachs, his three grandchildren, and other family members and all 
those who were fortunate to have him as a friend, colleague, or mentor 
and mourn his passing.

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