Bush taps Whitney for federal judgeship

Prosecutor picked for western district

Federal prosecutor Frank Whitney has sent scads of criminals and several corrupt politicians to prison. Now President Bush wants to send him to the bench.

If Bush gets his way, Whitney, 46, will leave the U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh this year to take a lifetime job as a federal trial judge in his hometown, Charlotte.

Bush nominated Whitney, a fellow Republican, late Tuesday to fill a court vacancy in the state's western federal district. There's no telling when the U.S. Senate will consider his confirmation, though he has the support of North Carolina's two Republican senators.

"I'm still kind of shaking over it," Whitney said Wednesday by phone from Columbia, S.C., where he was attending law courses for prosecutors. "I'm very humbled. But I shouldn't presume anything until the senators have decided whether I would make a good federal judge. I'm focusing on my job as U.S. attorney."

Whitney's confirmation would boost his career, most of which has been in public service. He worked in private practice before serving as an assistant federal prosecutor in Charlotte for 11 years. He briefly returned to the private sector before becoming the top prosecutor in Raleigh in 2002.

As U.S. attorney for Eastern North Carolina, Whitney sues and prosecutes people in 44 counties on behalf of the United States. An Army reservist, he also works as a military lawyer at Fort Bragg.

"Frank Whitney would serve with distinction as a member of the federal judiciary in North Carolina," Sen. Elizabeth Dole of Salisbury said in a statement. "He possesses a passionate sense for justice."

Sen. Richard Burr of Winston-Salem also applauded Whitney's nomination. He joined Dole last year in recommending Whitney to Bush as the successor to Brent McKnight, a federal judge who died in late 2003.

"He has the solid experience and a track record that will make him an effective judge," Burr said in a news release. "I hope the confirmation process for this judgeship will move forward and we can fill the vacancy."

Whitney, the former chairman of Mecklenburg County's Republican Party, is tall and stout. But the Eagle Scout's energy, earnestness and boyish face make him seem younger than he is.

As U.S. attorney he has won the convictions of several prominent politicians. Among them:

* Former state Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps for campaign-finance crimes.

* Former Congressman Frank Ballance for improperly steering state money to friends and relatives.

* Former state Transportation Secretary Garland Garrett for running an illegal video-poker business.

Those politicians were Democrats, but Whitney also has helped convict Republicans. He went after:

* Former state Sen. John Carrington for illegally shipping law-enforcement equipment to China.

* Larry Small, head of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, for illegally possessing feathers from endangered birds he bought from a Cary anthropologist.

Whitney also led the fight to return North Carolina's original copy of the draft U.S. Bill of Rights to the state 140 years after it was stolen from the state Capitol. Two Connecticut men were trying to sell it to a museum at the time.

Another vocal supporter of Whitney's nomination is Raleigh criminal defense lawyer Wade Smith, a self-described liberal Democrat who represented Phipps, Carrington and Small.

"He is bright as he can be, and he represents the government very well," Smith said Wednesday. "He is tough, there's no doubt about it. But I've always found that he's fair-minded."

Mike Stratton, a Connecticut lawyer on the other side in the Bill of Rights case, has a darker view of Whitney.

"I would definitely have concerns about Frank's ability to be impartial," Stratton said. "I think he lets his advocacy blind him to what's in the public interest."

No one involved is talking about who might replace Whitney if he gets the judgeship.

One likely candidate might be George Holding, the office's No. 2 lawyer and a past candidate for the post.

(Staff writer Barbara Barrett and news researcher Lamara Williams-Hackett contributed to this report.)