Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993 TAG: 9304070238
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: STATE NOTE: SHORTER
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
RENO SAYS SYSTEM BIASED
In a highly personal speech, Attorney General Janet Reno declared Tuesday that for too many poor Americans "the law means little or nothing" and the Constitution is no more than "just a piece of paper."Reno, in remarks explaining her goals to Justice Department employees, said that "our courts provide access to the rich" and that lawyers "give legal advice to large corporations" more often than they help most Americans.
The courts and Justice Department lawyers "are too often not there for the average American who does not know how to deal with the paperwork, the rules and regulations, the eligibility requirements, the licensing procedures and the web of laws designed to make men free," Reno said.
Reno described herself as "the new kid on the block," and said: "While I'm the attorney general we will address each issue with one question: What's the right thing to do?"
Taking note of concern with violence in the streets, she said: "We cannot respond with demagogic promises to build more jails and put all the criminals away."
Instead, she called for using the limited resources at all levels of government "to put the real criminals away while providing alternative sanctions for those people who are going to be coming back to the community anyway in a fairly short time."
Reno suggested harnessing the federal government's power "to make sure that innocent people are not charged or even tainted by our actions, and that the guilty are convicted according to principles of strict due process and fair play and with adherence to our Constitution."
Government should become "user-friendly, so you don't need a lawyer to understand what you need to do to deal with your government. Working with the best legal minds in America, we need to develop new and creative reforms that open our courts to all our people and give to every American a reason to believe that the Constitution is a living document that means something," she said.