In continuing fallout from the failed prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens, the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday announced the selection of a new official to coordinate discovery policies and training nationwide.

Andrew Goldsmith will take on the post. He's a former state and federal prosecutor who's now supervising environmental prosecutions at the Justice Department. His duties will include creating a handbook on discovery, similar to the Grand Jury Manual; implementing a training curriculum; and reviewing case management software.

The announcement of his selection comes two weeks after the department released new guidelines for how prosecutors should handle discovery in criminal cases.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said nine months ago that he would require additional training for prosecutors in the wake of the department having to abandon its case against Stevens, R-Alaska. During Stevens' trial in 2008, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan reprimanded prosecutors for failing to turn over documents, and the full extent of the prosecution's problems became clear later.

In a news release, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden said that Goldsmith brings a "wealth of knowledge and experience in this field." Goldsmith's past jobs include Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, state prosecutor in Manhattan, and chief of the environmental crimes unit in the New York Attorney General's Office. He's now assistant chief of the Justice Department's environmental crimes section.

Goldsmith has a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and law degree from Albany Law School. He was in private practice at New York's Townley & Updike from 1988 to 1994; the firm dissolved in 1995.

This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.

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Source: Environmental P...