Beau Biden
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!style="text-align: center; padding-bottom: 0.5em;background-color: #E6E6FA"|Attorney General of Delaware
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!style="background-color: #d0d0d0"|Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (D)
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2007 — Current
Preceded by: Carl C. Danberg
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Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III (born February 3, 1969) is a politician and lawyer from Wilmington in New Castle County, Delaware. He is a member of the Democratic Party and is the incumbent Attorney General of Delaware. He is the son of U.S. senator and vice presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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Early life and family
Biden was born February 3 1969 in Wilmington, Delaware, the oldest son of U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and his first wife, Neilia Hunter. His mother and baby sister were killed in an automobile accident in 1972, in which he was also badly injured. He is a graduate of Archmere Academy, the University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse University College of Law. From 1995 to 2004, he worked at the United States Department of Justice in Philadelphia. At first he served as a Counsel in the Office of Policy Development and later as a Federal Prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office. In 2004, he became a partner in the Wilmington law firm Bifferato, Gentilotti, Biden & Balick.
2006 Delaware Attorney General election
In his first attempt at political office, Biden ran for Attorney General of Delaware in 2006. Biden's opponent was the veteran state prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney, Ferris Wharton. Major issues in the campaign included each other's experience and proposed efforts to address sex offenders, Internet predators, senior abuse, and domestic abuse.
Biden won the election and was sworn in as Delaware's attorney general on January 2 2007. After the election he appointed former Delaware attorney general and International Judge Richard Geblein as Chief Deputy Attorney General, and former assistant U.S. Attorney Richard G. Andrews was appointed as State Prosecutor.
Military service
Biden is a member of the Delaware Army National Guard, and serves as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General's office. In August of 2007, he received notice that his unit would be deployed to Iraq some time in 2008. He is officially scheduled to deploy on October 3, 2008,[1] the day after his father participates in the campaign's only vice presidential debate. His father is on the record as saying, "I don't want him going. But I tell you what, I don't want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years, and so how we leave makes a big difference." [2]
Prison criticism
Upon his return from his tour of duty, Biden's office was in the middle of damage control, trying to contain the prison scandal and silence its critics.[3]
Dover attorney Steve Hampton took on the inmate's cases in several scandals with the state's prison system, successfully suing the Department of Correction (DOC) for the death of Anthony Pierce. Pierce was a 22-year old inmate at the Sussex Correctional Institution who had a massive brain tumor growing on his head. The tumor went untreated by the prison medical staff and eventually killed him in 2002.
Attorney General Biden’s office has been trying to silence Hampton.
“Really, what they are trying to do, they don’t want me talking about this any more,” he said.
When investigating a case of assault, Hampton interviewed prison guards about their training and discovered that the DOC is breaking an agreement with the federal government to provide specific training to the guard force. This was part of the federal Memorandum of Agreement between the DOC and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOC signed the agreement in 2005 rather than risk litigation in federal court, following another case of poor medical care in Delaware’s prisons.
A series of investigations by the Caesar Rodney Institute, called "Rogue Force," revealed ongoing problems with prison medical care, and physical abuse by a handful of guards at SCI – problems that were exacerbated by the DOC’s poor training. The series also quoted Hampton.
“There is an abusive atmosphere at SCI that permeates the whole place,” Hampton told the Caesar Rodney Institute for the series. “They have a hands-off attitude about the number of use-of-force incidents. It just isn’t important to them.”[3]
Lawmakers have appealed for federal investigation of the state’s prison system.
Contact Information
Dover Office:
102 W. Water Street
Dover, DE 19904
Criminal Div.: (302) 739-4211
Civil Div.: (302) 739-7641
Fax: (302) 739-7652
TTY: (302) 739-1545
See also
External links
- Delaware Attorney General Office
- Delaware's Attorney General
- University of Delaware Library, 181 South College Ave., Newark, Delaware (302) 831-2965
- Historical Society of Delaware, 505 Market St., Wilmington, Delaware (302) 655-7161
References
- ↑ Biden's Son Off to Iraq by Shailagh Murray, Washington Post, Aug. 20, 2008
- ↑ Biden's Son Headed to Iraq in 2008 Associated Press / ABC News, Aug. 16, 2007
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Attorney General Beau Biden’s Office trying to silence prison critic, Caesar Rodney Institute
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