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Candidate for State Attorney General, Maryland

Contact Information

Doug Gansler for Attorney General
1400 Spring Street 
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910
301-980-8042
http://www.gansler2006.com

Bio

Douglas Gansler is serving his second term as Montgomery County State's Attorney. In this capacity, Mr. Gansler is the chief law enforcement official of the largest jurisdiction in the State of Maryland with a population of nearly one million residents. Mr. Gansler was raised in Montgomery County and attended Chevy Chase Elementary School. Later, Mr. Gansler attended the Sidwell Friends School and graduated cum laude from Yale University, where he was an All-Ivy, All-New England, and Honorable Mention All-American lacrosse player. Upon graduating from law school from the University of Virginia, Mr. Gansler clerked for the Honorable John F. McAuliffe on the Maryland Court of Appeals, and later litigated cases as an associate at the law firm of Howrey & Simon. In 1992, Mr. Gansler was appointed as an Assistant United States Attorney, in which capacity he prosecuted a wide variety of cases, including domestic violence, health care fraud, gang-related violence, narcotics trafficking, sex offenses, and murder. During his tenure at the United States Attorney's Office, Mr. Gansler received national notoriety for his prosecution of the Georgian diplomat who killed a 16-year-old Montgomery County girl while driving drunk near Dupont Circle.

After taking office in January 1999, Mr. Gansler restructured the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office into the first prosecutor’s office in the country to implement the now well-regarded philosophy of Community Prosecution. Each of the 63 prosecutors in Mr. Gansler’s office is geographically assigned by neighborhoods and communities. Thus, instead of being merely case- processors, the prosecutors proactively serve as problem-solvers. As a component of Community Prosecution, Mr. Gansler became the first prosecutor in the United States to assign specific prosecutors to each school in his jurisdiction, from elementary through high school. Mr. Gansler dramatically diversified personnel by hiring and promoting women and minorities.

As State’s Attorney, Mr. Gansler worked to set up the first domestic violence docket in Montgomery County history and is in the process of facilitating the county’s first Drug Court. Mr. Gansler also formed the Elder Abuse Task Force, making his office the first prosecutor’s office in Maryland to systematically to address and attack crimes targeted at senior citizens. He also helped establish the progressive Montgomery County Child Fatality Review Team. Mr. Gansler is a member of the bi-county Gang Prevention Task Force and is at the forefront of Maryland’s efforts to fight cyber crime, overseeing prosecution of cases involving hacking, cracking, trademark infringement and identity theft. In addition, Mr. Gansler reinvigorated the prosecution of environmental crimes at the local level.

In his capacity as Vice President of the Maryland State’s Attorney’s Association, Mr. Gansler has successfully fought for the passage of legislation in a variety of areas. He worked to make hit-and-run a felony, to strengthen DWI laws significantly, to limit judicial reconsideration of sentences, and to promote the passage of a wide variety of other pro-victim, pro-law enforcement legislation.

Mr. Gansler continues personally to prosecute cases on a regular basis. For example, he successfully prosecuted Garrett Wilson, who killed his two infants for life insurance money, in a case that raised public awareness of the realities and myths about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). He prosecuted Tanisha Montague, who left her newborn baby for dead in a trash-filled bag in a garbage can; Montague was convicted, and the case inspired Mr. Gansler to advocate successfully for the state to adopt Safe Haven laws for newborns. Mr. Gansler also personally secured convictions for Leonard Lawson, who violated the public trust by accepting bribes; Robert Lucas, who savagely murdered Monsignor Thomas Wells in 2000; and Keith Lee, a drunk driver who killed a woman in a hit-and-run on Christmas Eve, 2002.

Mr. Gansler was first elected in 1998, and was re-elected in 2002, with a record-setting 237,019 votes. Among his many awards, Mr. Gansler was voted as one of the country’s 100 New Democrats to Watch, and received the MADD Hero Award and the Victims’ Rights Foundation Champion of Children Award.

In addition to his duties as Montgomery County's States Attorney, Mr. Gansler is an Adjunct Professor at the Washington College of Law at American University, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes, the Washington Regional Alcohol Program, and the Montgomery County Teen Court. Mr. Gansler also served as Vice- Chairperson of the Governor's Task Force on Childproof Guns. Mr. Gansler has chaired the Montgomery County NAACP Criminal Justice Committee, was a member of the Montgomery County Commission on Aging, and graduated from Leadership Montgomery. Mr. Gansler coaches two lacrosse teams for the Montgomery Youth Lacrosse Association, and a baseball team for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Youth Baseball League.

Mr. Gansler is married to Laura Leedy Gansler, a best-selling author and securities lawyer. The Ganslers have two young sons.