Janet Wood Reno (July 21, 1938 – November 7, 2016) was an American lawyer and public official who served as the first female and 78th United States attorney general.

Reno, a member of the Democratic Party, held the position from 1993 to 2001, making her the second-longest serving attorney general, behind only William Wirt.

Reno's mother, Jane Wallace (née Wood), wrote a weekly home improvement column for The Miami News under a male pseudonym and later became an investigative reporter for the paper.

[1][2] Janet's father, Henry Olaf Reno (né Rasmussen),[a] was an emigrant from Denmark and a reporter for the Miami Herald for 43 years.

[4] In 1943, the Reno family moved to a house in then-rural South Miami; it came with enough land to keep farm animals, including cows, chicken, ducks, goats, and turkeys.

[9] She worked for the Judiciary Circuit, and left the state attorney's office in 1976 to become a partner in a private law firm, Steel, Hector & Davis.

[9] As state attorney, she developed a reputation for ethical behavior, going so far as to purchase a car at sticker price to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

[12] She worked actively in various 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.

[13] In May 1980, Reno prosecuted five white policemen who were accused of beating a black insurance salesman, Arthur McDuffie, to death.

[14] During the resulting 1980 Miami riots, eighteen people were killed, with looters in Liberty City angrily chanting "Reno!

[14] During Reno's tenure as state attorney, she began what the PBS series Frontline described as a "crusade" against accused child abusers.

[16] Reno pioneered the "Miami Method",[17] "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.

"[18] Bobby Fijnje, "a 14-year-old boy, was acquitted after his attorneys discredited the children's persistent interrogations by a psychologist who called herself the 'yucky secrets doctor'.

"[21][22] Reno's "model case" was against Frank Fuster, co-owner of the Country Walk Babysitting Service in a suburb of Miami, Florida.

[25] Fuster was convicted based in large part on the testimony of his 18-year-old wife, Ileana Flores, who pleaded guilty and testified against him,[18][26] after allegedly being tortured.

[27] In 1989, as Florida state attorney, Reno pressed adult charges against 13-year-old Bobby Fijnje, who was accused of sexually molesting 21 children in his care during church services.

[35][36] When Reno was nominated for attorney general in the Clinton administration, the Nation[26] and Miami New Times[25][33] raised questions about her handling of these cases, Debbie Nathan's journal article[30] was faxed to the White House, and Fijnje's father (a Dutch diplomat) "sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee".

[40] President-elect Bill Clinton had vowed to assemble an administration that "looked like America", and it was widely assumed that one of the major cabinet posts would go to a woman.

[39] Both of his previous choices, Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood, faced problems because both had employed undocumented immigrants as nannies.

[63][64] Fiske wrapped up his criminal investigation within six months, and found no link between Whitewater and the suicide of former Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster.

[64][65] Congress reauthorized the investigation and in August 1994, a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals overseeing the special counsel refused to reappoint Fiske.

[65] The following month, Starr received permission from Reno to redirect his probe into conduct related to the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky affairs.

[71] After her tenure as United States Attorney General and her unsuccessful gubernatorial bid, Reno toured the country giving speeches on topics relating to the criminal justice system.

[72][73] Reno was a founding member of the board of directors for the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization which assists prisoners who may be exonerated through DNA testing, in 2004.

[2] In response to a 1998 Saturday Night Live sketch, which portrayed her as lonely, former Justice Department public affairs director Carl Stern said, "Both in Florida and in Washington she has a great many friends whose homes she visits, and she goes to plays, her dance card is full.

[83] In March 2008, Reno received the Council on Litigation Management's[84] Professionalism Award, which recognizes and commemorates an individual who has demonstrated the unique ability to lead others by example in the highest standard of their profession.

Seth Andersen, Executive Vice President of AJS said the award recognizes "her commitment to improving our systems of justice and educating Americans about our great common enterprise – to ensure equality under the law".