JOSH MELTZER The Roanoke Times

Cate Brownlee (center), 5, reminds her older sister Thompson, 8, to keep quiet while their father, U.S. Attorney John Brownlee, speaks with a reporter following his resignation from the post he's held since 2001.

U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said Thursday that he is weighing a bid for state office as he ends seven years as the top federal law enforcement official in the Western District of Virginia.

In a news release Thursday morning, then at a news conference with his wife and daughters beside him, Brownlee announced he is resigning effective May 16. The 43-year-old Roanoke resident said he and his family are seriously considering "very kind, very gracious messages" from people who have encouraged him to run for Virginia attorney general next year.

Brownlee's resignation ends a tenure marked by high-profile cases, landmark convictions and widespread notice for a style some found too aggressive or abrasive. It comes amid the ongoing presidential campaign; new administrations often appoint new U.S. attorneys.

Brownlee said he was proud that his office never gave in to pressure -- even pressure from within the Justice Department, where he for a time landed on the hugely controversial attorney firing list that embroiled the Bush administration in battles with Congress.

"That's what this office is about -- doing the right thing regardless of the outcome," said Brownlee, who was appointed by President Bush in 2001.

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who studies federal courts, gave Brownlee high marks for being independent and tough.

"I think he's had a pretty strong record," Tobias said, pointing to convictions gained last year against military technology company ITT Night Vision and pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma as especially noteworthy.

"If he does decide to run for attorney general, I think he could be a strong candidate," Tobias said. "Especially in the legal community, I think people know who he is."

It's been a commonly held opinion, at least in legal and political circles, that Brownlee had higher political aspirations.

"This actually comes as no real surprise," Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said about Brownlee's possible run for attorney general. "It wouldn't have surprised me to see him throw his hat in the ring for [U.S. Sen. John] Warner's seat."

Caldwell has criticized Brownlee for "cherry-picking" the cases he chooses to prosecute, but he said Thursday he respects that Brownlee thinks he is doing the right thing. "I want to make very clear," Caldwell said, "I like John personally. I've served with him in the Army.

"John Brownlee did not invent federal cherry-picking," Caldwell continued. "While I think John evaluates his cases and only takes strong ones, I don't think that's something that's unique to him."

Like Caldwell, some of the attorneys who faced Brownlee or his staff in court said they disagreed with the prosecutor's tactics, but not with him personally.

"There was a fond and professional respect," defense lawyer Tony Anderson said of the years he defended pain specialist Dr. Cecil Knox through two federal trials. "That's the way the adversarial system's supposed to work, I guess."

Terry Grimes, who has handled many cases in federal court, said it is expected that a prosecutor would butt heads with the defense.

"I thought he was a hard worker and represented the office well," Grimes said.

Brownlee's style was far more public and hard-charging than his predecessor, Clinton-era U.S. Attorney Bob Crouch, "but maybe that's a reflection of the times we live in," Grimes said.

John Lichtenstein, another attorney who often faced Brownlee in court, said the prosecutor grew beyond his early controversial cases. "I think what you saw was an evolution to a more corporate focus" and wider success, he said.

Brownlee said he and his staff have just done their best to ensure "a safe, hopeful community."

He said, "I don't think anybody in this office has been overzealous. But any time you prosecute someone, they're going to be upset."

A prosecution that attracted particularly fierce criticism was the pursuit of former National D-Day Memorial Foundation President Richard Burrow, whose two trials for fraud ended in hung juries. Burrow filed a complaint with an arm of the Justice Department that looks into prosecutorial misconduct, but an agency spokesman said in January that a review found nothing wrong.

Burrow stood with his wife, Janet, among the reporters, prosecutors and U.S. attorney's office workers at Thursday's news conference, saying only, "We're just here to witness his departure."

A case that drew even wider notice was Brownlee's prosecution of Purdue Pharma, maker of the addictive painkiller OxyContin. Brownlee was urged to back off, first by Rudy Giuliani, who was representing Purdue Pharma before his ultimately unsuccessful presidential bid, then by a superior at the Justice Department. After Brownlee told Michael Elston, then chief of staff for the deputy attorney general, that he had no plans to ease the prosecution of Purdue Pharma, he landed on the firing list, Brownlee said last year in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Brownlee ended up wresting $634.5 million from Purdue Pharma in a plea agreement in which the company admitted improperly marketing OxyContin. It was one of the largest such penalties imposed, although some relatives of people who overdosed on the drug said the company and its executives should have been punished more.

Brownlee said the pressure from within the Justice Department during the case left him "disappointed because you always want to believe in the best in people."

Brownlee last year expressed interest in federal judgeship openings in Richmond and Alexandria. But two statewide bar groups questioned his qualifications, and Brownlee was not among the nominees Sens. John Warner and James Webb passed along to the White House.

Brownlee said that serving as U.S. attorney was "really the honor of my life," and he thanked President Bush, Warner and former Sen. George Allen, and his staff and family. He also thanked the state's law enforcement community, saying he'd tried to build stronger ties to local agencies.

Replacing Brownlee next month will be Julie Dudley, who joined the U.S. attorney's office in 1988 and has served as the Western District's first assistant U.S. attorney for the past several years.

If Brownlee does run for Virginia attorney general, he would face state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli of Fairfax County in a contest for the Republican nomination. Cuccinelli last month said he hoped to join a 2009 GOP ticket that already has presumptive nominees for governor and lieutenant governor.

No Democrats have announced their candidacy for the attorney general position.

Staff writers Mike Allen and Michael Sluss contributed to this report.