Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III  was an American attorney, Army JAG officer, and politician from Wilmington, Delaware. He served as the Attorney General of Delaware and was a Major in the Delaware Army National Guard. He was a member of the Democratic Party and the older son of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and older step-son of Second Lady of the United States Jill Biden. He died in 2015 from brain cancer.

Biden was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the elder son of former U.S. Senator and current Vice President Joe Biden, and his first wife, Neilia Hunter. His mother and younger sister, Naomi Christina Biden, were killed in an automobile accident in 1972, in which he and his brother Hunter were seriously injured. He and his brother encouraged his father to marry again, and Jill Jacobs became Beau's stepmother in 1977. His half-sister Ashley was born in 1981.

He graduated from Archmere Academy, his father's high school alma mater, as well as the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity; and Syracuse University College of Law, as is his father. From 1995 to 2004, he worked at the United States Department of Justice in Philadelphia, first as Counsel to the Office of Policy Development and later as a Federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office. In 2004, he became a partner in the law firm of Bifferato, Gentilotti, Biden & Balick, where he worked for two years before being elected Delaware attorney general.

He and his wife, Hallie, had two children: a daughter, Natalie, and a son, Hunter.

At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, after Joe Biden was nominated for Vice President of the United States, Beau introduced his father. He recounted the auto accident that killed his mother and sister and the subsequent parenting commitment his father made to his sons, a speech at which many delegates wept.

Military service

Biden joined the military in 2003 as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard and was a Major in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps as part of the 261st Signal Brigade in Smyrna, Delaware.

Biden's unit was activated to deploy to Iraq on October 3, 2008, and sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, for pre-deployment training, the day after his father participated in the 2008 presidential campaign's only vice presidential debate. His father was on the record as saying, "I don't want him going. But I tell you what, I don't want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years, and so how we leave makes a big difference."

Biden traveled to Washington, D.C., from Iraq in January 2009 for the presidential inauguration and his father's swearing-in as Vice President, then returned to Iraq.

Biden received a visit at Camp Victory from his father on July 4, 2009. Biden returned from Iraq in September 2009, his yearlong stint on active duty complete. Biden had announced that during his deployment he would continue to actively serve as Delaware's Attorney General by working in conjunction with his office's senior staff in Delaware,[17] although a member of his unit related Biden saying he had turned over most of his attorney general work to his deputy so as to focus on his duties in Iraq.

Political career

  Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden at a Justice Department press conference.

In his first bid at political office, Biden ran for Attorney General of Delaware in 2006. Biden's opponent was a veteran state prosecutor and Assistant U.S. Attorney, Ferris Wharton. Major issues in the campaign included the candidates' experience and proposed efforts to address sex offenders, Internet predators, senior abuse, and domestic abuse. Biden won the election by approximately five percentage points.

After being elected, he appointed former Delaware Attorney General and International Judge Richard S. Gebelein as Chief Deputy Attorney General, and former assistant U.S. Attorney Richard G. Andrews was appointed as State Prosecutor. As Attorney General, Biden supported and enforced stronger registration requirements for sex offenders.

Joe Biden resigned from the Senate following his 2008 election to the vice presidency. Governor Ruth Ann Minner named former Joe Biden aide Ted Kaufman to fill the vacant seat, but Kaufman made clear that would not be a candidate in the 2010 special election. This fueled speculation Beau would run at that time.

Biden's father stated after the announcement of Kaufman's appointment, "It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General, would make a great United States Senator just as I believe he has been a great attorney general. But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life that any office he sought he would earn on his own ... [I]f he chooses to run for the Senate in the future, he will have to run and win on his own. He wouldn't have it any other way."

In October 2009, Biden stated that he was considering a run for the Senate and that he would make a final decision in January. On January 25, Biden confirmed that he would forgo a Senate run so as to better focus on the prosecution of Earl Bradley, an infamous pedophilia suspect.

On November 2, 2010, he was easily re-elected to a second term as Delaware Attorney General, beating Independent Party of Delaware candidate Doug Campbell by a huge margin.

He was the first person to have held an elected office while his father was in office as Vice-President.

Biden did not seek election to a third term as Attorney General in 2014. He announced his intention to run for Governor of Delaware in the 2016 election to succeed term-limited Democratic Governor Jack Markell, before Biden's death in 2015.