Before he was sworn in as the next U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee on May 21, Jerry E. Martin tried collective and class-action suits in federal courts as a partner at Barrett, Johnston & Parsley. Ahead of his ceremonial investiture yesterday, Martin spoke with NashvillePost.com about settling into this new job.How have you made the transition from your old job as into role as a U.S. Attorney? I was doing a lot of class-action work, so I almost always was the plaintiff, which meant you had to move your case along and play more offense than defense. So it’s similar in that sense — when you’re a prosecutor you’re also pushing a case and having to prove your case.There are a lot of similarities in terms of fraud cases because of the nature of the cases I was handling in private practice, but then there’s a big difference in terms of getting familiar with the criminal statutes that are the bread and butter of the office. That’s something I’m working pretty diligently on.How are you preparing for the job, getting up to speed?A lot of it is learning by doing. For example, if it’s an indictment, we have attorneys proceeding in front of the grand jury. They ultimately brief me on what the evidence is, and then I ultimately sign off on the indictment.I’m certainly doing a lot of reading. I spent four days in Washington last week in an orientation program for new U.S. attorneys that was very helpful in understanding how the department works and the various divisions. A lot of my job is administrative. I’m not actively prosecuting any cases, though that may change as I get my sea legs.It seems you didn’t have much time to land in the office before you were faced with big indictments such as one involving 26 Blood gang members. How did you prepare for cases already ongoing in the office?There are some really good management folks that my predecessor put in place, and I haven’t changed any of that. I’m still trying to get my head around the job before I make those decisions. I may not move anybody around, but I want to be very deliberate. They have gotten me up to speed when I need to get up to speed. When it’s critical that I get involved they get me involved. I think over time that will sort of level out and I’ll start to understand what I need to do and what’s taking care of itself.Have you had time yet to develop a certain approach to your new job?I certainly said to people when I came in here I check my politics at the door, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a certain idea of how a U.S. attorney’s office should be run. In terms of what your priorities are, you come into the job with those. That doesn’t mean you learn those and figure those out as you go. You may modify them because you begin to understand what’s realistic and what’s not. You also begin to learn what areas need to be focused on. You learn a lot as you go, but that doesn’t mean you come in without sort of an idea of a direction you want to take the office.What is that direction?Some of the things I want to do would be to build on the legacy of Ed Yarbrough, who did a fantastic job here. One of those is continuing to service the entire district by going into smaller communities and help the local law enforcement by bringing cases into the federal system. We do that by targeting violent felons arrested with guns. If you have folks who have shown a propensity for violence but because of parole or the sentencing they’re back on the streets in a few years, if you can bring them into the federal system where there is no parole and the sentencing is typically longer, you can really have an impact in those communities.Obviously, the gangs — I want to continue to use the good relationship we have with the local, state and federal agencies to continue to dismantle the gangs here in Middle Tennessee.The third area that I think we should continue to grow and focus a lot of energy on is pursuing white-collar criminals, be it health care fraud, public corruption or environmental crimes. Those are crimes that are a priority of this current administration. That’s something I want to effectuate in the district.Yarbrough eventually took over after U.S. Attorney Jim Vines resigned in 2006 following allegations of age discrimination, complaints the office didn’t prosecute aggressively enough, and claims there was a disconnect between the office and local law enforcement agencies. Has this office moved past that? How do you ensure those issues don’t resurface?What I know about any kind of history of the office comes from people telling me about it. This office is really functioning as a cohesive law firm, essentially. To the extent that there are any long-running historical issues, I’m unaware of them in my day-to-day interactions with the attorneys. So really what I have to say about that is, it’s in the past. I wasn’t here. We’re focused totally on the future and going forward.How do you continue to involve all of the local agencies through the district?I spent the first couple weeks — and I’m not quite done yet — going around meeting various agency heads. I’ve met with a tremendous amount of them, and I’m going to continue to do that until I’ve met everybody. Also, every month this office organizes a breakfast for the various agency heads from state and local law enforcement agencies to come in and get together, which is good because it helps people talk and share ideas. I’m also in the process of meeting with different district attorneys general, and I plan to meet with all of them eventually.The first thing to do is be accessible and reach out to them. I go to their offices as opposed to asking them to come here, and I will continue to do that. I think really the trick to being successful at that is understanding there is plenty of good work that we can do together and share the credit for it. When something goes wrong we’re all going to get the blame, but when things are going right we need to be sure we’re all taking credit equally.Anything else?Going back to priorities, sometimes the way you can have the biggest impact as a U.S. attorney is when you choose to exercise discretion. Generally, you don’t get a lot of credit for exercising discretion. But the reality of it is, it’s the most powerful thing any prosecutor can do, and so I hope that during my tenure one thing that I will be remembered for, internally and with people involved in the judicial system, is that I exercised my discretion when it was appropriate by not indicting someone or by allowing a pretrial diversion. It’s just making sound decisions, and always letting the facts and the evidence drive every decision you make.
Entry interview: Jerry Martin
