President Barack Obama has nominated Assistant U.S. Attorney Felicia Adams to lead the Northern District of Mississippi U.S. Attorney’s Office, a move that was a year in the making.

Adams, a prosecutor in the Southern District of Mississippi, emerged as a candidate for the Oxford, Miss., post in March 2010. State Sen. Gray Tollison and criminal defense attorney Christi McCoy, who are both from Oxford, also were considered for the post. Northern District of Mississippi Assistant U.S. Attorney Curtis Ivy also had been mentioned as a candidate for the job.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) took the lead on selecting U.S. Attorney candidates for Mississippi’s congressional Democrats.

Thompson formally recommended McCoy for the position in 2009. But McCoy’s ties to a local private investigator, who was under investigation for his billing practices, dogged her candidacy. The Northern District U.S. Attorney’s office, which handed the case, dropped its probe last year, clearing McCoy.

Adams has spent more than two decades with the Justice Department. She was at the Northern District of Mississippi U.S. Attorney’s Office from 1989 to 2000 before joining the Southern District of Mississippi U.S. Attorney’s Office.

She also was Legal Counsel to then-Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus (D) from 1988 to 1989 and clerked for U.S. District Judge Odell Horton of the Western District of Tennessee from 1984 to 1985.

Adams received her undergraduate degree from Jackson State University in 1981 and her law degree from the University of Mississippi in 1984.

The Northern District of Mississippi U.S. Attorney’s Office has been led by interim U.S. Attorney John Marshall Alexander since December. He replaced Bill Martin, who had led the office since U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee, a George W. Bush appointee, resigned Jan. 31.

Obama on Wednesday also renominated S. Amanda Marshall of Oregon and Thomas Gray Walker of the Eastern District of North Carolina for U.S. Attorney posts. The Senate sent their nominations back to the president in December when the body failed to vote on the nominees before it adjourned.

These nominations are Obama’s first U.S. Attorney nominations for the year. The Senate has confirmed 76 of Obama’s U.S. Attorneys thus far. There are 93 U.S. Attorney posts across the nation.

Obama has yet to name a nominee for Southern District of Mississippi U.S. Attorney. Lawyers Deborah McDonald of Natchez, Kathy Nester of Jackson, Dorsey Carson of Jackson and Constance Slaughter-Harvey of Forest have been mentioned as possible candidates for the post.

President Barack Obama has renominated two of his U.S. Attorney picks whom the Senate returned to him last year.

The nominees are S. Amanda Marshall of Oregon and Thomas Gray Walker of the Eastern District of North Carolina. The Senate sent their nominations back to the president in December when the body failed to vote on the nominees before it adjourned, and Obama resubmitted their names Wednesday.

Here are more details on the nominees:

– Obama first tapped Marshall for Oregon U.S. Attorney on Nov. 17. But the Senate Judiciary Committee never acted on her nomination.

S. Amanda Marshall (facebook)

She is the top lawyer in the Child Advocacy Section of the Oregon Department of Justice. Marshall would replace Interim U.S. Attorney Dwight C. Holton. President George W. Bush’s U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut resigned in July 2009 and later became a state judge.

Read more about Marshall here.

– Obama first nominated Walker on Nov. 30, 2009, to be the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina. But the Senate Judiciary Committee never acted on his nomination.

Thomas G. Walker (Courtesy Alston + Bird)

He is a partner at the law firm of Alston & Bird, LLP in Charlotte, N.C. Walker would replace U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding, whom Bush appointed in 2006.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) held up Walker’s nomination over concerns about his connections to former Gov. Mike Easley (D) and former Sen. John Edwards (D).

The U.S. Attorney’s office investigated Easley for allegedly filing a false campaign financial disclosure. The office terminated its investigation last month after he reached a plea deal.

Edwards is reportedly under investigation by the office for allegedly paying his mistress with campaign money.

Burr said he planned to lift his hold on Walker upon completion of both investigations. Read more about Walker here.

The nominations of Marshall and Walker, along with that of Felicia Adams for Northern District of Mississippi U.S. Attorney, are Obama’s first U.S. Attorney nominations for the year. The Senate has confirmed 76 of his U.S. Attorneys thus far. There are 93 U.S. Attorney posts across the nation.

A former federal prosecutor in Florida has refiled a lawsuit against the likely nominee for U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, accusing him of violating federal laws by releasing confidential information in an effort to get himself appointed U.S. attorney.

Last month, Jeffrey Del Fuoco’s defamation lawsuit against Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert O’Neill was thrown out of court, and a judge scolded him for making scandalous accusations. The latest lawsuit also names Attorney General Eric Holder, The St. Petersburg Times reported Saturday.

Del Fuoco, who blames the loss of his job on O’Neill, sent letters and e-mails to the White House and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) claiming that investigations were compromised because of a extramarital relationship that O’Neill allegedly had with another staffer in the U.S. Attorney’s office.

O’Neill, the head of the Middle District office’s criminal division and Del Fuoco’s former boss, is reportedly the frontrunner for the U.S. Attorney nomination and is said to be undergoing a background investigation. Other finalists who were submitted by a Florida screening committee included Jacksonville, Fla., lawyer Harry Shorstein and another Assistant U.S. Attorney, Robert Handberg.

According to Del Fuoco, the chairman of the selection panel distributed Justice Department documents to other committee members, including a letter that states the reasons Del Fuoco departed the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Del Fuoco claimed that many of the allegations are not true and said they are damaging to his reputation. O’Neill has previously accused Del Fuoco of filing lawsuits repeatedly in an attempt to smear his reputation.

A Florida judge has unsealed his court order that is critical of a U.S. Attorney candidate for the Middle District of Florida, The Florida Times-Union reported yesterday.

Harry Shorstein (Shorstein & Lasnetski)

State Circuit Judge Kim Hammond denounced former Jacksonville, Fla., state attorney Harry Shorstein in the 2008 order regarding the ex-prosecutor’s management of a still-sealed grand jury examination into state attorney John Tanner’s probe of the Flagler County, Fla., prison, according to the newspaper. The 16-month-old court order was unsealed Dec. 4, according to the Times-Union.

Tanner, who “vehemently opposes” Shorstein’s U.S. Attorney candidacy, filed the motion to unseal the order, the Times-Union said. Shorstein, the former state attorney for Florida’s 4th Circuit in the northeast corner of the state, has a relationship with Hammond, according to the newspaper, but it is unclear how close the two are. Hammond recused himself from a case last month that involved Tanner’s daughter, the Times-Union said.

The newspaper did not report the details of the unsealed document.

Adding to the intrigue, Shorstein wasn’t aware of the Dec. 4 hearing, according to the newspaper. But prosecutors from the office of current Jacksonville-based state attorney Angela Corey, who is also a Shorstein critic, were present, even though the office’s special prosecutor appointment for the case expired in 2008, according to the newspaper.

Corey, a Republican, wrote to then-Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) earlier this year to ask them not to recommend Shorstein, who was her former supervisor at the office. Two years ago, Shorstein fired Corey, and later spoke out against her bid for election to the state prosecuting job. But last year, Corey easily beat Shorstein’s former chief of staff in the bitterly contested election.

Shorstein, now a partner at the Jacksonville law firm of  Shorstein & Lasnetski, told the newspaper that the unsealing of the order is a “slick” endeavor to spoil his bid for U.S. Attorney.

“It shows the process lacked credibility,” Shorstein told the Times-Union. “If it didn’t, it would have been done differently.”

Tanner told the newspaper that he asked for the order to be unsealed after a Florida screening committee named Shorstein, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert O’Neill, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg as candidates for the Tampa-based U.S. Attorney post in July. President Obama has not yet selected who he will nominate.

“This just made it a priority matter, and I thought it was a matter of public importance,” Tanner told the Times-Union. “When you apply for public office … your professional record … should be a matter of scrutiny.”

We previously reported that Sen. George LeMieux (R-Fla.) met with a White House official in November to express concerns about Shorstein.

It is unclear what effect, if any, this unsealed order will have on Shorstein’s bid to succeed Bush-administration holdover U.S. Attorney A. Brian Albritton. But the White House has seemed to steer clear of candidates that have links to controversies.

Southern District Developments. In other news involving the filling of U.S. Attorney posts in Florida, we reported last week that the White House no longer appears to be considering two Southern District of Florida U.S. Attorney finalists, who received special scrutiny in the state. The White House is vetting a third finalist, assistant Dade County, Fla., attorney Wifredo “Willy� Ferrer, for the Miami-based U.S. Attorney post.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a 2008 Republican presidential candidate and fierce opponent of illegal immigration, is criticizing the nomination of Stephanie Villafuerte for District of Colorado U.S. Attorney.

Tom Tancredo (gov)

President Barack Obama officially nominated Villafuerte (University of Denver, University of California at Los Angeles) on Sept. 30. The deputy chief of staff to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) would be the first Latina to serve as Colorado’s top federal prosecutor.

In a column on the conservative WorldNetDaily Web site, Tancredo cites a controversy from Ritter’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign against Republican Bob Beauprez that resulted in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent losing his job.

The agent, Cory Voorhis, was acquitted of charges he improperly accessed a federal crime database for information the Beauprez campaign used to make a campaign ad that attacked Ritter for reaching plea agreement with illegal immigrants when he was the Denver District Attorney. One of those undocumented immigrants was Carlos Estrada-Medina, an accused heroin dealer.

Stephanie Villafuerte (gov)

After the ad was released, Villafuerte called a staffer at the DA’s office and apparently asked about Estrada-Medina. The DA’s office also accessed the same information as Voorhis in the National Crime Information Computer database.

The DA’s office said that the check on Estrada-Medina was done in response to media calls. But records released by the DA’s office in response to a request by The Denver Post “show no such media deluge. Instead, they indicate that the DA office’s work on Estrada-Medina also had its roots in a campaign,” the newspaper reported in 2008.

Voorhis lost his job over the matter. Tancredo thinks there’s a double standard.

“As the U.S. attorney, will Stephanie Villafuerte offer help in investigating the corruption, perjury and malfeasance rampant in the Denver regional office of ICE?,” writes Tancredo. “Will she be an advocate for the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws after participating in the disgusting vendetta against ICE agent Cory Voorhis? The answer to those questions is probably … no se puede,” wrote Tancredo.

WND is home to conservative conspiracy theories on everything from Obama’s citizenship to the belief that health care reform would lead to “concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.” Recent headlines include “Will your thoughts be subject to hate crime laws?” and “How to survive the coming martial law in America.”

If confirmed, Villafuerte would replace Acting U.S. Attorney for Colorado David Gaouette, who has been in the position since Jan. 10 after Bush appointee Troy A. Eid resigned. Gaouette’s current 120-day extension expires on Dec. 8, at which point the U.S. District Court for Colorado would appoint a interim U.S. Attorney until a presidential nominee is sworn in.

With the announcement that Michael Cotter was nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for Montana today, a former candidate for the post has turned his attention to an open spot on the state Supreme Court.

Mike Wheat

Attorney Mike Wheat, of Cok Wheat and Kinzler PLLP, said he decided to pursue the Supreme Court spot a week and a half before Cotter’s nomination was announced, sending a letter to Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and John Tester.

“It’s pretty stimulating, actually,” Wheat said. “You can have a real impact on your state, from a legal point of view.”

“I had some friends of mine who said that might be  a better fit for me,” Wheat said. He has been a plaintiff’s attorney for more than 30 years, and specializes in litigating allegations of unsafe products, personal injury, bad faith insurance claims, nursing home neglect and medical negligence.

A spot on the Montana Supreme Court opened up at the beginning of September, when 66-year-old Justice John Warner resigned after six years on the bench. Warner was appointed in 2003, re-elected twice, and was serving out a term that would have lasted until 2012. According to the Missoulian, Warner resigned for health reasons. He is battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Peter Neronha (DOJ)

Peter Neronha (Boston College, Boston College Law School) is nominated to replace Robert Clark Corrente, who resigned June 26.

His vitals:

• Born in Wakefield, R.I., in 1963.
• Been assistant U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island since December 2002 where he has prosecuted cases involving firearms, drugs, extortion, white collar and public corruption matters. Previously served as Project Safe Neighborhoods Coordinator and Anti-Gang Coordinator and currently is the chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force.
• Worked in the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office for more than six years, serving as Assistant Attorney General from January 2001 until December 2002 and Special Assistant Attorney General from Nov. 1996 until Jan. 2001. During his tenure he prosecuted cases related to public corruption, white collar crime and environmental matters.
• Was an associate in the litigation department of Goodwin Proctor in Boston, Mass. from September 1989 until November 1996, with an 11-month break in 1995 while he and his wife moved from Massachusetts to Rhode Island. While working at the firm he dealt with issues involving land-use planning and zoning, environmental, intellectual property, securities fraud, construction, copyright and commercial dispute matters.
• Was a paralegal at Lovett Schefrin & Gallogly in Providence, R.I., from November 1985 until  August 1986
• Estimates he has tried 75 trials to verdict, most of which he was sole or chief counsel. Has also tried fewer than five cases as co-counsel.
• Graduated magna cum laude from Boston College Law School, where he was a member of Law Review, and graduated summa cum laude from Boston College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kapa and a participant in the College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program.

Click here for his full questionnaire.

Carter Stewart (Columbia, Harvard Law) is nominated to replace Gregory Lockhart.

His vitals:

• Born in 1969 in Boston, Mass.
• Since 2005, Stewart has been an associate at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in Columbus, Ohio. His practice is general commercial litigation, but he lists his focus as white collar defense.
• Began his legal career in California, as an associate at based in Bingham McCutchen’s San Francisco office. After leaving the firm in 2002, he joined the U.S. attorney’s office in San Jose, where he prosecuted gangs and handled general crimes, including drug and gun possession, social security fraud, obstruction of justice, environmental crimes, and illegal immigration. Stewart helped investigate and prosecute Victor Conte and others at Balco Laboratories for peddling anabolic steroids.
• Has prosecuted seven trials, six of them as lead counsel.
• Was an analyst in the New York City Office of Management and Budget in the early 1990s.
• In 2008, he made Columbus Business First’s Forty Under 40 Leaders to Watch and won the John Mercer Langston Bar Association’s Emerging Leader Award.
• Lists no speeches, testimony, policy statements, or reports on his questionnaire.
• Was an Ohio representative to Democratic National Committee for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and an at-large delegate for Obama at the Democratic National Convention.

Click here for his full questionnaire.

Her vitals:

• Born in 1952 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• Been an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Hawaii since 1985. For the past four years, she’s been the chief of the Drug and Organized Crime Section. She previously ran the office’s Drug Section and was a member of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
• Began her legal career as an attorney-adviser in Justice Department’s Office of Information and Privacy Appeals. In 1982, she left Washington for an assistant counsel position at the Naval Supply Center in Pearl Harbor.
• Has collected about 10 awards for his service as an AUSA from local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.
• Lists no membership to any outside organizations “except my (Buddhist) temple, the Honpa Hongwanji Betsuin.”
• Has never been involved in a political campaign or worked for any political party.
• When she was hired by then-U.S. Attorney Daniel Bent, the office had no divisions or sections. Though she had no experience in criminal law, she tried five criminal cases to verdict in the first year and three in the second year. Nakakuni initiated more than 140 civil forfeiture cases from 1986 through mid-1989 resulting in the forfeiture of more than $4 million in cash and property. (She’s tried more than 30 cases to verdict since 1985, including 25 criminal jury trials as lead counsel)
• Nakakuni successfully prosecuted the head of the 12,000-member United Public Workers. Gary Rodrigues was found guilty on 100 counts of mail fraud, health care fraud, embezzlement of union funds, money laundering, money laundering conspiracy and accepting kickbacks.
• If confirmed, she would be Hawaii’s first female U.S. attorney.
• Her financial disclosure forms are currently unavailable. We’ll post them as soon as they are.

Click here for her full questionnaire.

Steve Dettelbach (Dartmouth, Harvard Law) is nominated to replace Gregory A. White, who resigned in 2008 to become a federal magistrate judge.

Steven Dettelbach (ohio.gov)

• Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1965.
• Been a partner at Baker & Hostetler since 2006, splitting time between the firm’s Washington and Cleveland offices. He specializes in corporate internal investigations, as well as defending corporations and individuals in federal and state investigations and regulatory actions. Dettelbach dropped his criminal work in March 2009, apparently anticipating his return to the Justice Department. Since then, his practice has been exclusively on the civil side.
• Was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Cleveland, assigned to the Organized Crime and Corruption Task Force from 2003 until he left for private practice. He was involved a series of high-profile corruption and fraud cases related to municipal contracting. The prosecutions — he was lead counsel (or “first chair”) in three trials –resulted in the conviction of eight defendants, including the mayor of East Cleveland, a Cleveland councilman, and the chief of staff to the mayor of Houston.
• Served as a federal prosecutor in Maryland from 1997 to 2001, handling a wide array of federal criminal matters, from complex narcotics cases to large scale fraud and corruption matters. During that stint in Maryland, he took a detail as counsel to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He worked on criminal law policy, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and DOJ oversight.
• Joined the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in 1992 as a trial lawyer and left as an acting deputy chief of the Criminal Section in 1997. Dettelbach specialized in involuntary servitude cases, hate crimes and complex police misconduct investigations.
• Estimates he has tried between 25 and 45 trials to verdict, as lead counsel or co-lead counsel.
• Received a raft of awards and commendations, including four from then-Attorney General Janet Reno.
• Is a member of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court.
• Was an outside advisor to the Obama’s presidential transition on Justice Department-related issues and chaired the outside adviser group. He also volunteered for Obama’s presidential campaign as a member of the Government Reform and Criminal Law Policy advisory committees, and provided the campaign with legal assistance and advice.
• Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland appointed Dettelbach to the Ohio Ethics Commission in 2008. In 2007, he served on the Governor’s Task Force on Campus Safety, Chairman, Law Enforcement Response Working Group, in the wake of the Virgina Tech shootings. (He volunteered for Strickland’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign, offering policy advice, fundraising, and assisting grassroots activities.)
• Dettelbach lists a net worth of $902,900, with securities totalling $693,823.

Click here for his full questionnaire.