Despite gentle provocation from a former chief counsel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, top officials of the scandalized federal fisheries law enforcement system Tuesday gave no sign they are rethinking a plan to march forward without looking back for miscarriages of justice.
Indeed, in the day-long PowerPoint presentations, breakout groups and flip charts at law enforcement summit called by NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco, no official at the podium of a Washington, D.C. , hotel even acknowledged that Eldon Greenberg, a former NOAA chief counsel now in private practice, had broached the subject of retrospective justice.
Speaking in the middle of the day's event, Greenberg nudged NOAA to deal with the obvious looses ends of cases that helped trigger an industry resistance last year, beginning in Gloucester, that eventually found the U.S. senators and congressmen from Massachusetts echoing legislative calls for the U.S. Inspector General to intercede and for Lubchenco to step down.
Greenberg acknowledged that the proposal was "controversial," and "can be viewed as a slippery slope" but also said he saw the need for "some internal equity."
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Daily Times.