CATHERINE L. HANAWAY
United States Attorney
On April 24, 2006, Catherine Hanaway was officially sworn-in as the 46th United States Attorney since 1814 to serve the Eastern District of Missouri.
After being sworn-in by the Honorable Ray Gruender as United States Attorney, Hanaway addressed the crowd to identify her priorities and commend the tremendous team at the office that she will now head. She concluded her remarks by saying, “In being asked to serve as the 46th U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri, I have been entrusted with something very precious, a tremendous team and awesome authority and responsibility. The mission can be summed up with two simple, profound words, DO JUSTICE. They are words that call forth all that I have. I hope at the end of my tenure I will have earned the finest compliment that can be paid to any prosecutor–she was tough, but she was fair.”
Additional excerpts from her remarks:
From Arkansas to Iowa and west as far as Linn County, this office seeks everyday to make sure that the guilty are prosecuted, the innocent protected and the interests of the United States preserved. The truly remarkable thing isn’t just the vastness of the mission, what is truly remarkable is the great care, tremendous skill and enormous compassion--by the attorneys and support staff in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri--with which that mission is accomplished.
What will this world class team of lawyers in the U.S. Attorney’s Office do next? They will do what they have always done–RISE TO THE CHALLENGE.
Hanaway identified the five priorities of her office:
- Anti-Terrorism
- Methamphetamine
- Child Pornography
- Guns/Project Safe Neighborhoods
- White Collar Crime/Public Corruption
The number one priority of the Department of Justice and this office is and must be to prevent another terrorist attack, by detecting, disrupting and prosecuting terrorism wherever it may be. This mission is vastly different than almost all previously put before us. Traditionally, prosecutors have been called upon to carry out justice after the commission of a crime. Now, we are called to assist in preventing the horrific crime of terrorism before it is committed. The greatest enemy in the battle against terrorism is often complacency. We can only be free from another attack if we continue to vigorously search for terrorist activity. We are constantly on guard against evidence of terrorist financing, terrorist recruitment, terrorist infiltration of the workforce at our airports and national security assets like Boeing.
Methamphetamines are a scourge running through the hills and valleys of this District, and two counties frequently lead the nation in the number of meth labs busted each year. Because the quantities manufactured in these labs are smaller than the drug cases typically prosecuted at the federal level, this office had not been laser-focused on this problem. BUT WE ARE NOW. The message should be heard loud and clear, if we catch you with five grams of meth or more you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
At one time, if your children were in your home and your doors were locked, they were safe and you could rest easily. The internet has changed that dramatically. Some of the worst predators are entering our homes through the wires that attach us to the internet. These sick, perverse predators surf the net looking to pounce on the most innocent children. This office has done a remarkable job in prosecuting these crimes, and we have recently increased the number of prosecutors handling these difficult cases. We must, and we are going to redouble our efforts by calling on local police departments to loan officer time to investigations. Working with schools and other community organizations, we are launching a preventive, outreach program to educate parents and children on how to avoid being victims.
In the last four years, the number of prosecutions of felons in possession of firearms has increased in this office by 108%. We will continue to focus on prosecuting convicted felons who choose to make our streets more violent by arming themselves. The St. Louis Regional Ceasefire Initiative, a component of the Bush Administration’s Project Safe Neighborhoods Program, is a collaborative effort of federal and local law enforcement, including this office, the St. Louis City Circuit Attorney’s Office, the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Marshal’s Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the St. Louis County Police Department.
In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of men and women in positions of authority abuse the trust placed in them by raiding escrow accounts, cooking corporate books and stealing identities. Fortunately, our superb white collar prosecutors are more clever than the crooks and will continue to meet each new challenge. In addition, those who abuse patients of nursing homes or elected officials who would abuse their office should know we’ll get you too.