Independent Counsels: They Keep Going and Going and . . .

Independent counsels are the Energizer bunnies of Washington. Almost nothing stops them.

Soon, in response to congressional pressure, another independent counsel may be created to examine questions about the White House’s role in political fund-raising during the 1996 campaign. If that happens, count on the probe to have an extended shelf life. And don’t hold your breath waiting for dramatic indictments.

Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who recently reversed his decision to resign, has been on the job approaching three years. But he has neither brought charges against the main subjects of his probe, President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, nor cleared them.

Besides Starr, there are two other independent counsels pursuing separate investigations that involve former heads of the Housing and Urban Development Department, not exactly cases to excite the average American.

One of these inquiries began seven years ago with allegations that Samuel R. Pierce Jr., Ronald Reagan’s HUD secretary, had acted corruptly. That investigation reached its peak two years ago when independent counsel Arlin Adams, a former federal judge, decided to clear Pierce of any wrongdoing.

Did that end it all? Not on your life. Adams withdrew to resume his private law practice in Philadelphia but got the U.S. Court of Appeals to appoint a successor, Larry D. Thompson, to wrap up loose ends.

Thompson’s big achievement so far has been to get Washington consultant James G. Watt, the Interior secretary under Reagan, to plead guilty to a misdemeanor.

The second HUD-related inquiry is headed by independent counsel David Barrett, who was appointed in May 1995 to determine if Henry G. Cisneros, the Clinton administration’s first HUD secretary, broke any laws in understating to FBI agents how much money he had paid a former mistress.

The use of outside prosecutors took root during the Watergate scandal of the 1970s and was intended to restore public confidence in the ability of the federal government to police itself. Overall, the 19 court-appointed independent counsels who have served since then have spent well over $100 million. Along with the still-running probe of Reagan’s Housing and Urban Development Department, the longest investigation was Lawrence E. Walsh’s seven-year examination of the Iran-Contra scandal, which lasted from the mid-1980s to the early ‘90s.

Some lawyers, judges and legal experts believe that these expensive “outside” investigations often lose their way. Donald C. Smaltz, a Los Angeles attorney appointed nearly three years ago to investigate then-Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, has obtained 14 indictments so far, but Espy is not among them.

Critics note that lesser officials can always be prosecuted by the Justice Department, suggesting that independent counsels should focus on bigger fish.

Herbert J. Miller, who headed the Justice Department’s criminal division under President Kennedy and later represented Richard Nixon in the Watergate tapes litigation, is among the prominent attorneys who are skeptical about independent counsels.

“It’s plain to me these investigations are political,” Miller said. “They’re driven by Congress.”

Even some former independent counsels believe that their roles should be more limited. Some suggest special counsels should be reserved only for those rare and momentous cases, perhaps no more than one per decade, where the president or his closest associates are accused of seriously misusing federal power.

“We need a continuation of the statute, but I favor a narrowing of it,” said Harvard University law professor Archibald Cox, the first Watergate special prosecutor who was fired by Nixon in the “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973.

Cox said he favors limiting the number of officials subject to these special investigations, as well as limiting the duration of the probes.