Page "Janet Reno" Paragraph 3

In 1978, Reno was appointed State Attorney for Dade County ( now called Miami-Dade County ).

She was elected to the Office of State Attorney in November 1978 and was returned to office by the voters four more times.

In addition to her official duties, she worked actively in many civic organizations including the Miami Coalition for a Safe and Drug Free Community and the Beacon Council, which was formed to address Miami-Dade's economic development.

During her tenure as state attorney, Reno began what the PBS series Frontline described as a " crusade " against accused child abusers.

An editorial in the St. Petersburg Times argued :" Reno's reputation as a state attorney, the foundation for her eight years as the nation's attorney general and her candidacy for governor of Florida, was built in significant part by her aggressive prosecution of three sensational child abuse cases in Miami-Dade County.

She pioneered a controversial technique for eliciting intimate details from young children and inspired passage of a law allowing them to testify by closed-circuit television, out of the possibly intimidating presence of their suspected molesters.