Jo Ann Harris (née Murray; May 18, 1933 – October 30, 2014) was a federal prosecutor and the first woman to head the Criminal Division of the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

. Among other accomplishments during her tenure, she created a special task force to investigate abortion clinic bombings, and was involved in the investigation of the

Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-government extremists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry N ...

. In 2000, Harris and colleague Mary Frances Harkenrider were appointed as special counsels to investigate a confrontation between government lawyers and

Monica Lewinsky Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...

that contributed to the impeachment of

President Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again f ...

Early life

Harris was born in

Macomb, Illinois Macomb is a city in and the county seat of McDonough County, Illinois, United States. It is situated in western Illinois, southwest of Galesburg. The city is about southwest of Peoria and south of the Quad Cities. A special census held in 2 ...

and grew up in Galesburg, where she attended public schools. She majored in Journalism at the University of Iowa and graduated in 1955. Harris had a successful career in magazine journalism, working for publications including the Ladies Home Journal, Better Homes and Gardens and ''

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

''. She met her husband Greg Harris, whom she married in 1965, while working at Time. Harris died in 2014 in

The Bronx, New York The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York ...

, aged 81 from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

Legal career

Harris received her Juris Doctor from New York University at age 39 in 1972 and clerked for

Lawrence W. Pierce Lawrence Warren Pierce (December 31, 1924 – February 5, 2020) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the S ...

, then a U.S. District Judge in the

Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New Y ...

. In 1974, she joined the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. She served as an assistant U.S. Attorney from 1974–79 and 1981–82, and as Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney under U.S. Attorney John Martin from 1982–83. Her best-known prosecution was that of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church, for tax evasion in 1982. Her first role in the Department of Justice's Criminal Division in Washington D.C. was from 1979–81 as Chief of the Fraud Section where she approved and supervised the first successful prosecution under the newly enacted

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) (, ''et seq.'') is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests. The FCPA is applicable world ...

. Harris served as the first woman to head the Justice Department's Criminal Division in Washington, D.C. from 1993–95. In that role, she supervised investigations and prosecutions being handled by over 400 government lawyers and established the Department's first Computer Crime section and a task force to investigate violence against abortion clinics. She was responsible for the early part of the investigation of the

in 1995. She also developed a plan for the role of U.S Attorneys in the Criminal Division's 1995 violent crime initiative that proposed a new violent crime section in the Criminal Division and regional desks to help U.S. Attorneys coordinate investigations. In 2000, then Independent Counsel

Robert W. Ray Robert William Ray (born April 4, 1960) is an American lawyer. As the successor to Ken Starr as the head of the Office of the Independent Counsel (1999 to 2002) he investigated and issued the final reports on the Whitewater controversy, the Whit ...

, appointed Harris and a colleague, Mary Frances Harkenrider, as special counsels to investigate a January 1998 confrontation between government lawyers and

that contributed to the impeachment of

. The 100-page report found no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct but concluded that the lead attorney "exercised poor judgment and made mistakes in his analysis, planning and execution of the approach to Lewinsky."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Jo Ann 1933 births 2014 deaths Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state) United States Assistant Attorneys General for the Criminal Division University of Iowa alumni New York University School of Law alumni People from Galesburg, Illinois American women lawyers American lawyers 21st-century American women