DOVER, DE - Delaware Attorney General Carl C. Danberg has hired a private attorney and his law firm at $425 per hour to represent the state and the Department of Correction during an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into prison health care.

Danberg said he hired Washington, D.C.-based attorney Michael Bromwich "because the Delaware Department of Justice does not have the experience in dealing with these types of claims."

The attorney general, who has 180 lawyers on his staff, couldn't recall whose idea it was to hire a private attorney.

"It may have been mine," he said. "I wanted experience."

Bromwich, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Justice, is a specialist in investigations, monitoring and white-collar criminal defense. He is a partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

Some in the legal community question the need for outside counsel.

"Why does the Delaware attorney general need someone to guide his office through an investigation when part of the job of his office is to conduct investigations," said Jules Epstein, associate professor at the Widener University School of Law. "Delaware appears to be hiring a lawyer to tell lawyers how to cooperate in an investigation run by lawyers.

"One could ask the question, why money has not been spent on an outside expert to evaluate the health care and see if improvements are needed," he said.

A former assistant U.S. attorney, Bromwich serves as the independent monitor for the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department -- a court-appointed oversight position created after a federal probe revealed excessive force and misconduct at that agency.

Delaware taxpayers will pay Bromwich and the attorneys on his team throughout the federal investigation -- a process Bromwich estimates could take "from nine months to many years, depending on the scope of the investigation and the number of facilities involved."

Federal prison regulators have said they will investigate conditions of confinement at five Delaware prisons. The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act -- CRIPA -- authorizes the Justice Department to investigate conditions in any jail or prison.

When problems are found, the Justice Department can sue the prison in federal court for relief. The Special Litigation Section, the arm of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division responsible for enforcing CRIPA, has never lost a case.

Most cases are resolved without litigation, through consent decrees -- in which the prison promises to make changes. These consent decrees are closely monitored by the Justice Department.

Citing Department of Justice rules, neither U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly nor Justice Department spokesman Eric Holland would comment about Bromwich's role.

After the federal investigation was announced, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner pledged her full cooperation. She did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.

Dover lawyer Steve Hampton has sued the state, its prison medical provider and the Department of Correction on behalf of inmates who received substandard medical care.

Hampton represented the family of Anthony Pierce, who became known as "the brother with two heads" as an inmate at Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown. He died from a brain tumor while his condition was mishandled by prison medical staff. The state settled the wrongful death lawsuit in a confidential agreement last year.

"The first thing it says to me is they are continuing their denial and cover-up, and have no real will to fix the problem," Hampton said. "However, at least the Attorney General's Office realized they're in over their head, and are going outside their own system to hire someone with appropriate expertise, unlike the DOC, which seems content to rearrange their own players in a system that's fatally flawed."

According to the contract signed by Danberg and Minner, Bromwich was hired "as counsel" to Delaware pursuant to the federal investigation "and in connection with related matters."

"We'll consult fully with the attorney general and people in his office," Bromwich said. "It will be a collaborative, consultative process."

The federal investigation into the state Department of Correction came on the heels of a five-month preliminary inquiry by the Justice Department, during which federal regulators interviewed the same medical experts, inmates and families of dead inmates who spoke to The News Journal late last year during the newspaper's six-month investigation of prison health care.

Danberg said the federal probe is moving forward.

Federal prison regulators have met with the attorney general, made document requests and exchanged correspondence. Prison visits were arranged but later postponed at the request of the federal regulators.

"To my knowledge, they have not yet been on site," Danberg said. "But we will cooperate with scheduling to arrange those visits."