Tears and Laughter: New Jersey Top Cop Reflects on Her New Role

Jennifer Davenport was crying, softly. But since New Jersey’s newest attorney general was mic’d up, the hundreds of lawyers paying attention at the Borgata Hotel theater in Atlantic City, N.J., caught it.

The brief moment Wednesday came when Davenport recounted early-career advice she received from federal judge Freda L. Wolfson. Speaking before a group of attorneys at the New Jersey State Bar Association’s annual meeting, Davenport described how she’d just bombed a criminal trial as assistant US Attorney when cross-examining a defendant by asking him on the stand if no one could see him at a crime scene “because he ...