Mary Beth Buchanan () is the former United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. She was nominated by George W. Bush on September 5, 2001, and confirmed by the United States Senate on September 14, 2001.
Buchanan was the first woman and youngest person to be appointed to the position. Under Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, Buchanan held two key Justice Department posts, splitting time between Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh up until her resignation as Acting Director of the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women in December 2007. In May 2010, Buchanan was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district, but was defeated in the Republican primary.
Personal Buchanan was born in July 25, 1963, and is a native of suburban Roscoe, Pennsylvania. She is a 1984 graduate of California University of Pennsylvania, and a 1987 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Her second husband, Thomas C. Buchanan, is the grandson of the founder of the Buchanan Ingersoll law firm. The firm, in which he is a partner, is now called Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney.
Career Buchanan worked temporarily as an associate at Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Potter after her 1987 law school graduation.
Buchanan is an active member of the Federalist Society. She has spoken at many of the organization's conferences on various topics and has published two articles in the society's news magazine. Buchanan was slated to speak on "Warrantless Wiretapping, Wireless Tracking, and Law Enforcement" at the Boston University Student Chapter of the Federalist Society on January 28, 2009.
Federal appointments Buchanan joined the U.S. Attorney's Office as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1988. From 1988 to 1992, she represented the United States in the office's Civil Division. From 1992 until her appointment as U.S. Attorney, she served in the Criminal Division.
Buchanan was the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2009. She was nominated by George W. Bush on September 5, 2001, and confirmed by the United States Senate on September 14, 2001. On December 3, 2008, Buchanan released a statement to the press that she did not intend to step down or offer her letter of resignation to President-elect Barack Obama despite the ordinary practice that sitting U.S. Attorneys offer a new administration their resignations. As an appointed position, U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. On October 29, 2009, Buchanan's office released a statement that she would step down from her post as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania on November 16, 2009.
Buchanan concurrently served in more than one position within the Department of Justice. These appointments were as follows:
Between April 2003 and May 2004, Buchanan served as chair of Attorney General John Ashcroft's Advisory Committee of United States Attorneys. This committee counsels the Attorney General on law enforcement issues and plays an integral role in setting Justice Department policy.
From February 2002 to 2004, she served on the Advisory Committee to the United States Sentencing Commission, which was established to study the effectiveness of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
From June 2004 until June 2005, Buchanan served as Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. This Washington, D.C.-based office provides administrative support to the 94 United States Attorneys' Offices nationwide. Buchanan held this post at the start of the period that relates to the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. Buchanan hired Monica Goodling to work in the executive office.
From November 2006 through December 2007, Buchanan served as the Acting Director of the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women. This office, based in Washington, DC, administers financial and technical assistance to communities nationwide that are creating programs, policies, and practices aimed at ending domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and provides leadership in developing the nation's capacity to reduce violence against women through implementation of the Violence Against Women Act.
Controversial cases
United States vs. Tommy Chong (2003)
Buchanan oversaw Operation Pipe Dreams, which was a $12 million law enforcement operation targeted at individuals conducting online sales of water pipes and other devices that could be considered drug paraphernalia. The investigation resulted in 55 individuals being charged, most notably comedian and actor Tommy Chong, who was charged for his role in the financing and promoting of Chong Glass/Nice Dreams, a company started by his son, Paris Chong. Chong's case never went through a federal trial; instead he came to a settlement with Buchanan's office in which he admitted to distributing 7,500 bongs and water pipes via the Internet through Nice Dreams, a family company named for one of his movies. Of the 55 individuals charged through the investigation, Tommy Chong was the only individual without a prior criminal history who received jail time.
Chong's jail time, the tactics utilized by the DEA agents during the investigation, and the investigation's focus on Tommy rather than Paris Chong (the company's CEO), raised concern among critics of selective prosecution. When asked why the government had focused on Tommy Chong instead of the company's CEO, Paris, Buchanan responded that "Tommy Chong was the more responsible corporate officer because he financed and marketed the product." When questioned on the disparity between sentences/fines that the other 54 individuals received compared to Tommy Chong, Buchanan stated, "He [Tommy Chong] wasn't the biggest supplier. He was a relatively new player, but he had the ability to market products like no other."
Chong was released from federal prison after nine months. He has been an avid critic of the prosecution in his case. In 2006, Chong wrote a book about his experiences in jail and his interest in meditation, called The I Chong: Meditations From The Joint. In addition, the documentary a/k/a Tommy Chong chronicles the Drug Enforcement Administration raid on his house and his subsequent jail sentence for trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia. Tommy Chong has stated publicly that he has no ownership in the film.
On May 7, 2008, federal agents raided Spectrum Labs on an investigation related to Spectrum Labs' detoxification products. The raid, one of nine during the day, was part of Operation True Test, an investigation being led by Buchanan. The investigation targeted companies that sell "masking products" that are supposed to help drug-users pass employer drug tests. Of the nine search warrants issued, none were for businesses within Buchanan's district, the Western District of Pennsylvania.
In executing their search warrant, the federal agents supposedly seized over 10,000 copies of the documentary a/k/a Tommy Chong, which had yet to be released, though this was later retracted. Chong speculated that the initially alleged seizure may rest with prohibitions against one benefiting financially from a crime; however, Chong has not stated publicly that he has been charged with such an offense. In a statement released to the press, he stated "It's [i.e., the seizure of the DVDs] a way to punish the distributor financially. There's no way to get the DVDs back until the investigation is over." Chong also stated that he has no ownership in the film.
United States vs. Karen Fletcher (2006) Karen Fletcher of suburban Donora, Pennsylvania was indicted on six charges of distributing obscene materials over the Internet. The fictional texts featured detailed stories about the molesting, torture and sometimes gruesome murders of children under the age of 10, mostly girls.
Unlike typical obscenity cases, though, Karen Fletcher was charged with violating the law through simple writing, and not with pictures or movies. Fletcher ran what was known as the "Red Rose" Web site, where she posted her fictional stories. In order to prevent minors and others from accessing the site improperly, Fletcher charged members a $10 monthly fee to have access to the site. At the time of the indictment, there were only 29 members to the site. No other member to the site was charged within the indictment.
In affidavits, Fletcher wrote that she has almost no memory of her childhood up until the age of 14. She explained that her writing started out just for her and was cathartic because she had been sexually abused as a child. "At first I would capture a particular feeling of dread and try to weave it into a scenario that explained the feeling", she wrote. Fletcher described what she called her "monsters":
I have always been afraid of monsters. The monsters in my life had always been real; for too long they were always there with unlimited access to me, and I was helpless to do anything about it. In my stories, I have created new monsters. [They] rise above the horror of the real life monsters. Somehow, making these monsters so much worse makes me feel better, and makes my life seem more bearable. I may still be afraid of the monsters, but at least in the stories, they prey on someone else, not me.
Fletcher's lawyers argued in pretrial court proceedings that their client was not guilty of the charges. Their arguments were based on a viewpoint that the stories written by Fletcher did not meet the legal definition of obscenity. The legal definition of obscenity embraces both "description", as in text, and "depiction", as in images, stated one of Fletcher's lawyers. In one of their briefs, the defense argued that Fletcher's stories, however lurid, were comparable to many scenes found in literature and television. The novel A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, and episodes of the television cartoon South Park were cited as such examples. The defense also cited a scene in the novel The Apprentice by I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, in which a 10-year-old girl is placed in a cage with a bear who forces himself upon her sexually to habituate her to sexual submission. The lawyers argued that Fletcher's stories were no more lurid than the novel by Mr. Libby. Additionally, Fletcher's lawyers argued that she ran the web site for cathartic (medical) reasons in an attempt to help herself and others move past issues of childhood exploitation. The fact that Fletcher charged a membership fee was utilized to argue that Fletcher was not attempting to distribute the materials. Since the case was one of the handful of obscenity cases in the previous twenty years and it involved only text without visual images, First Amendment activists joined in the defense.
In response to the criticism that she received from those activists, Buchanan stated, "It (Fletcher's stories) is some of the most disturbing, disgusting and vile material that I've ever viewed." Later within another press statement, Buchanan stated that, "Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment, and the law is clear on that." "This is extremely egregious and is as patently offensive as material possibly could be. I cannot imagine material more offensive than the material in the case of Karen Fletcher."
While pornography by itself is not illegal, it can be prosecuted as obscenity if it fits the definition laid out by the Supreme Court more than 30 years ago. Under that ruling, Miller v. California, a work may be deemed obscene if, taken as a whole, it lacks artistic, literary or scientific merit, depicts certain conduct in a patently offensive manner, and violates contemporary community standards. This standard was the one that was to determine the jury's calculus of guilt in the case of US vs. Karen Fletcher.