The Prosecutor

Eric Holder Jr. was trained long ago in crime and punishment. He grew up in the East Elmhurst section of Queens, N.Y.--so populated by cops and firefighters that rush hour looked like the shift change at a station house. A popular teen prank was setting off the red fire-alarm box near his modest brick house on 101st Street. Nearly everyone tried it once, but not Eric, the churchgoing Boy Scout who knew the consequence of disobeying rules: "A good, quick smack on the bottom," his mother Miriam recalls. "If you did something wrong, you're going to have to pay a price."