The trial of John Edwards, former Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidate, former North Carolina senator and one-time wealthy plaintiffs’ lawyer, will begin at the end of January, a federal judge ordered Tuesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles of the Middle District of North Carolina, who sits in Greensboro, set Jan. 30 for the beginning of jury selection, with the first evidence to be presented on Feb. 13, according to a report on Josh Gerstein’s Politico blog.

“Edwards is charged with violating campaign finance law during his 2008 presidential bid by conspiring to use about $900,000 in funds from two political supporters to cover the living expenses of his mistress and a child he fathered with her,” Politico recounts.  Edwards, who pleaded not guilty, is also accused of causing false reports to be filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Justice Department launched a probe Thursday into the Miami Police Department’s training policies and use of deadly force.

Civil Rights Division head Thomas Perez and Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said that the “pattern and practice” investigation will center around the shootings of seven black men, which occurred between July 2010 and February 2011, according to the AP.

Miami police officers maintain that split second choices led to the shootings, but the Justice Department will look into whether the Police Department’s training methods, leadership and practices influenced the officers’ decisions.

If the Justice Department rules that the city’s police department is guilty of systemic flaws, it could mandate reforms.

The Miami Police Department is already conducting a “top to bottom review of everything, from training to hiring,” after hiring a new chief in September, according to a spokesperson for the department who spoke to the Miami Herald.

The previous chief, Miguel Exposito, who had refused to turn over details about the July 2010 killing of Decarlos Moore to a civilian oversight panel, was fired for insubordination.

The Justice Department last conducted a civil probe of the Miami Police Department in 2002 at the request of the city. Federal officials found in 2003 that the city’s police officers were inappropriately conducting searches and seizures, and overusing firearms, force and police dogs. The report, however, did not find that the police department’s polices led to any violations of federal civil rights statutes.

Federal prosecutors want to revoke the probation of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. on grounds that the company has been a repeat offender of environmental laws in its oil operations on Alaska’s North Slope, according to the Associated Press.

The company’s 2007 guilty plea to a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act the year before has already led to three years of probation, a $12 million fine, and restitution and community service payments totaling $8 million to the state of Alaska and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, BP attorneys said in opposing the government’s move.

But the government said the company has failed to heed court warnings to concentrate more on safety and less on profits, as evidenced by a 2009 spill that was “was completely predictable and absolutely preventable,” prosecutors said in the court filing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aunnie Steward of the District of Alaska said Wednesday that revocation of probation could mean extra penalties or an additional, longer probation term.

A 200,000-gallon North Slope oil spill in 2006 — the largest ever in Alaska’s oil patch — was followed by a 13,500-gallon spill three years later, prosecutors have argued in trying to establish negligence. Company lawyers said BP was not negligent, that it made improvements to its facilities after the 2006 spill, and that no oil from the 2009 spill reached “United States waters,” a standard for a violation of the Clean Water Act, the A.P. said.

A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 29 in Anchorage, the A.P. said, citing a report in The Anchorage Daily News.

“The spills in Alaska were dwarfed by the spill of more than 200 million gallons that followed the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig over a BP PLC well in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 rig workers,” the A.P. recalled. “BP PLC has already spent or committed tens of billions of dollars to clean up the oil and compensate victims and faces hundreds of civil lawsuits. Government fines and penalties also could add liability.”

President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Tax Division said Wednesday that her past criticism of crackdowns on offshore accounts would not affect her performance at DOJ.

Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing Wednesday, Kathryn Keneally stressed her credentials and experience navigating ethical issues, said that the “IRS and Tax Division should be commended,” and that it would be “an absolute privilege to serve one’s country” as she laid out a general vision for running the section.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, had expressed concerns that Keneally’s past criticism of tax law enforcement were inappropriate for a Tax Division Assistant Attorney General.

Grassley asked how she could reconcile the subtitle of a 2007 article she co-wrote – “the War On Tax Shelters Will Give Rise to an Entrenched Enforcement Mindset” – with the responsibilities of her position and the fact that “me and others believe just the opposite.”

Keneally responded that she believed there were certain aspects of the shelter crackdown initiative “that were maybe a bit much in the average examination of the ordinary taxpayer,” and that “the IRS has made some changes along the lines that were suggested in that article.”

Keneally had also stated earlier in the hearing that the Tax Division’s offshore tax compliance initiative is a “very important priority,” and, in response to a question from Kohl, that she would carefully select cases presented to the division by the IRS to “create deterrence.”

The seasoned tax lawyer and Fulbright & Jaworski partner also stated that she has never helped clients set up offshore entities, never conducted tax planning for finance and that she advised clients to bring assets back into compliance when the situation would arise.

And while she said that she has represented clients in IRS amnesty programs, Keneally stated that she was aware of potential “revolving door” conflicts of interest and pointed to her past work on the American Bar Association Ethics Committees as proof that she is “aware of ethical obligations.”

In his opening remarks, Grassley remarked that the position is particularly important “given severe debt and deficit situation facing the country.”

The Justice Department would receive $27.1 billion in fiscal 2012–an increase of $18 million above last year, under a massive appropriations bill the House and Senate are expected to pass shortly.

The funding level is $1.3 billion below President Barack Obama’s request for Fiscal 2012, but is higher than the funding level the House had proposed. In its version of the Commerce, Justice, science appropriations measure, the House had proposed providing $26.35 billion.

The funding levels are contained in a so-called “mini-bus” appropriations bill. It is called that because it contains several–but not all Fiscal 2012 spending measures.

The funding measure would provide almost $2.3 billion in aid to state and local law enforcement agencies; that represents a $570 million cut below last year’s level. Again, that spending level is higher than the House-proposed level. The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, a favorite target for Republicans, would be funded at almost $199 million, a cut of $296.4 million.

The bill continues to include a provision dealing with Guantanamo Bay. The provision prohibits the transfer or release of any detainee into the U.S., and a prohibition on the acquisition or construction of any new prison to house detainees.

The bill also would provide the:

• FBI with $8.1 billion, an increase of $192 million from last year;
• Drug Enforcement Administration with $2 billion, a $20 million increase. The appropriations bill includes an increase of $32 million for programs that fight prescription drug abuse;
• Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with $1.2 billion, a $39 million boost from last year.

The funding bill does not include Senate language addressing the controversial ATF Operation Fast and Furious, during which federal officials in the southwest allowed guns to “walk” into Mexico as part of an effort to trace them. The operation is now being investigated by the department’s Inspector General, as well as congressional Republicans. The Senate had adopted an amendment that would have expressly prohibited ATF from funding any operation that allowed guns to “walk.” DOJ officials had said that provision was not needed because Attorney General Eric Holder had issued orders that such an operation not occur again.

The appropriations bill does not include the Senate language, but simply acknowledges Holder’s order. In addition, the bill states that “Operation Fast and Furious is but a small part of ATF’s extensive operations along the
Southwest Border and should not detract from ATF’s efforts to protect Americans from illegal firearms trafficking, gun violence, and parallel drug and human trafficking across the U.S.Mexico border and into the Nation’s interior.”

The Justice Department is still a good place to work, but it fell — just barely — out of the top 10 list in the vast federal bureaucracy.

So says the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan research organization that asks thousands of federal workers questions about how well their skills match the agency’s mission statement, agency management and leadership and the balance between work and family life.

This year, the DOJ ranked No. 11 among big federal agencies, with a score of 68.3 out of a possible 100, down from its No. 9 posting and a score of 69.3 a year ago (see Main Justice’s report from 2010). The General Services Administration ranked No. 10 this year. But the DOJ’s decline is consistent with an across-the-board dip in federal worker morale.

For the second year in a row, the DOJ’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division ranked “happiest,” if that’s the right word, with a score of 81.5.  The Office of Justice Programs, whose mission is “to provide federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, improve the criminal and juvenile justice systems, increase knowledge about crime and related issues and assist crime victims,” ranked last among DOJ agencies, at 57.6, down only slightly from a year ago.

The Washington Post said worries over money, leadership and Republican efforts to cut budgets have all contributed to an decline in overall satisfaction among federal workers. In fact, The Post said, federal workers’ job satisfaction is down for the first time in four years.

“We’re learning to do more with a lot less,� John Reynolds, a management analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency, told The Post. “But that’s consistent across the country, not just in government.� Morale went up at only 31 of the 308 federal agencies, bureaus, departments and offices in the survey, The Post noted.

Workers in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation were happiest, with an overall 85.9 rating, up from 79.2 a year ago.  Maybe that’s reassuring, since the FDIC’s mission is to maintain stability and public confidence in the banks.

Federal and local law enforcement officers raided medical marijuana dispensaries in western Washington on Tuesday, alleging that the stores laundered money and trafficked in cannabis for recreational purposes.

Fifteen dispensaries were raided in Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Puyallup, Lacey and Rochester, and one person was arrested, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Seattle U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan said in a statement that while her office respects the state’s decision to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana, “state laws of compassion were never intended to protect brash criminal conduct that masquerades as medical treatment.”

A statement issued by Durkan’s office said that some of the dispensaries were the “subject of complaints from their surrounding communities as well as medical marijuana supporters, concerned about businesses operating outside the letter and spirit of state law.”

The Seattle U.S. Attorney’s office also said that the person arrested in the raids had violated the terms of his federally supervised release for a prior conviction.

Retail medical marijuana dispensaries are neither expressly banned nor allowed in Washington, according to a 1998 referendum approved state law allowing the cultivation of the plant for personal medicinal uses.

Stores have emerged throughout the state nonetheless, according to the Tribune.

In April, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire vetoed key parts of a bill that would have established a new regulatory framework for the state’s medical marijuana system, citing legal opinion from federal prosecutors who threatened to crackdown on dispensary owners and state regulators.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana as a pain reliever.

Even though missteps and outright mischief in the banking industry have attracted attention in recent years, federal prosecutions for fraud involving financial institutions have actually gone way down, The New York Times reports.

“During the first 11 months of the 2011 fiscal year, the federal government filed 1,251 new prosecutions for financial institution fraud,” Catherine Rampell writes on the Times’ Economix blog. If that pace continues, she notes, a total of 1,365 prosecutions for the fiscal year are projected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which analyzed Department of Justice records.

“That’s less than half the total a decade ago,” Rampell writes. Meanwhile, she notes, federal prosecutions for all crimes have nearly doubled in the past decade.

Rampell’s posting is accompanied by examples and an important caveat: the financial fraud category “can refer to crimes committed both within and against banks. Defendants include bank executives who mislead regulators, mortgage brokers who falsify loan documents, and consumers who write bad checks.”

In other words, the numbers don’t just depict bankers stuffing cash into bags and flying to countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) pressed Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement with the health care law when she was solicitor general under President Barack Obama.

The renewed pressure from Sessions, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, came after the disclosure of emails showing Kagan expressing enthusiasm for the health care law and elation over its rising support on Capitol Hill, as Healthwatch, the blog of The Hill newspaper, reported.

“I am deeply disturbed by these developments and believe that the Justice Department should have provided these documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee during Justice Kagan’s confirmation hearing,” Sessions wrote to Holder in a series of questions, Healthwatch said.

Some conservatives have said Kagan should not take part in arguments over the health care law when the Supreme Court hears the case, probably early next year, because she has expressed opinions about it already (see Main Justice’s earlier report).  From the other end of the political spectrum, there have been calls for Justice Clarence Thomas to decline to participate because of his wife’s financial ties to groups seeking repeal, and calls for Justice Antonin Scalia to be on the sidelines because he and Thomas recently attended a dinner sponsored by groups opposed to the law, as Healthwatch noted.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in the Middle District of Pennsylvania is prepared to help federal and state officials investigate allegations that former Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused children.

Peter L. Smith, the Harrisburg U.S. Attorney, issued a statement on Monday saying that his office will assist both the Pennsylvania Attorney General, Linda Kelly, and the U.S. Department of Education as they look into the case.

“Our general policy and practice are to not comment on the existence or non-existence of a federal investigation,” Smith said. “At the same time we recognize that the public disclosures concerning the State Attorney General’s investigation and the recent grand jury report are extremely disturbing because they involve the safety of children and, therefore, mandate thorough review of the facts and appropriate action by law enforcement at all levels, including federal agencies.”

The Education Department is investigating Penn State University for possible violations of the Cleary Act, a federal law requiring institutions of higher learning to annually report annually crimes committed on campus.

Smith added there are other “specific areas of federal inquiry” that he could not discuss.

Sandusky, who has denied the charges, is facing an indictment on 40 counts of alleged sex crimes against minors. Court documents allege that he abused eight boys from 1994 to 2009.

Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, a former senior vice president, were also charged in connection with the case with perjury and failure to report allegations involving Sandusky in 2002.