T. Greg Doucette on false arrest and police brutality

This post is not from me, but is a remarkable rant from T. Greg Doucette, an attorney in Durham, NC, who took to Twitter to share his experiences defending a young client from charges of reckless driving to endanger, a serious crime in North Carolina. (Greg, if you’re not okay with me collecting these here, let me know and I will take it down.)

I’m sharing it because, as the child of a legal aid defense attorney, I remember growing up with loads of stories like this, and having these stories shape my understanding about law enforcement, criminal justice and power. My father used to frequent courtrooms and offer to defend people facing charges without counsel precisely because stories like this are extremely common.

Need to rant briefly. You've been forewarned.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

1. I get asked — often — if I hate police

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

2. I don't; I look at "police" generally like I look at teachers generally

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

3. When a teacher decides to rape a student, we don't demonize all teachers. Same w/ teachers who are woefully inept at teaching.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

4. But, at the same time, no sane person denies there are teacher-rapists and teachers who suck at their job

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

5. I view police the same; I'm willing to take a leap of faith and assume you're competent, until you prove otherwise

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

6. Soooooo that brings me to court today

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

7. Client is a 17yo black male, "YBM" in defense lawyer parlance

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

8. My YBM client is charged with reckless driving to endanger, a very serious. He's terrified. Cried in my office explaining situation

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

9. Insisted he was just trying to avoid an animal that darted into the road, and swerved to the right

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

10. I pull the shuck, and read the officer's narrative of what happened:

"Neighbor saw driver doing donuts in street, nearly hit wife."…

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

11. Cont'd: "Skid marks show clear 360° circles. Driver claimed he was trying to avoid hitting cat."

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

12. Re-read that:

"clear

360°

circles"

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

13. Thankfully (how f*cking sad is it that "thankfully" is the appropriate word here?) his mom didn't trust the officer, and took pics

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

14. Which she kept, and sent to me

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

15. (Most of which were useless. Ppl take pictures of a lot of useless sh*t when they're terrified btw.)

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

16. The money shot: pic.twitter.com/9q1gSQa3mw

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

17. Now go back and re-re-read:

"clear

360°

circles"

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

18. What. The actual. F*ck.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

19. Do I hate police? No. I hate raging incompetent cowboys w/ badges financed by my tax money who clearly haven't had an eye exam recently

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

20. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

21. The DA was kind enough to dismiss the case without putting up a fight.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

22. My YBM client's family is out what they paid me. Client himself is traumatized. And basis for police mistrust gets a fresh exhibit.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

23. While the officer who (wrongfully) charged him — and pretty clearly lied on official court documents — will face -0- repercussions.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

24. This is what police brutality looks like. It's not just people having their rights violated and the sh*t kicked out of them.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

25. It's an innocent 17yo black kid trying to be a good human being and not running over a cat getting thrown headlong into our court system

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

26. It's having to come up with money you don't have, to defend yourself against charges that shouldn't have been filed

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

27. And recognizing that — but for photographs that someone had the foresight to take immediately — you'd have been convicted

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

28. Based solely on the word of a law enforcement officer who swore an oath to serve and protect who then lied to the court with impunity

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

29. The State doesn't care of course. For every one case dismissed, hundreds more plead guilty. Court costs are $188+ apiece

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

30. A day's worth of traffic cases can finance an ADA's salary for a year. Likewise for a clerk or a judge.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

31. Guess what that means for legislators? They can cut preexisting court funding and put it somewhere where it'll buy them more votes

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

32. So you've got a court system that ends up somehow being underfunded despite charging a sh*tload of money for minor offenses…

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

33. Police routing more and more people (predominantly young and black) into the court system, patting themselves on the back

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

34. (For protecting us from eeeeeevil 17yo YBMs trying not to hit cats while driving)

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

35. While the politicians fiddle as their constituents burn, because people naively assume things like this would never happen

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

36. Welcome to the clusterf*ck that is our criminal justice system. I filed to run for the State Senate precisely b/c of this bullsh*t.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

37. It doesn't matter if you put an R or a D or a U beside your name — this is wrong.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

38. Sorry for taking up your TL. For reasons I don't understand, I'm *still* in disbelief that this sh*t *still* happens, when I know better

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

39. I'm now going to clog my arteries with Bojangles in the hope/prayer that I won't still be flamingly pissed after lunch.

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

40. "clear 360° circles" 😂

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 23, 2016

A couple of things. Greg mentions that this situation is wrong whether you’re Republican, Democrat or undecided, but you may be assuming that he’s a Dem. He’s not – he’s a Republican and a libertarian, and is running for state senate as a Republican.

Positive, esp when we talk about the economy or firearms or the size and scope of government :) Small-L libertarian https://t.co/lBpOGMfxyT

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) February 24, 2016

You may also assume that he’s African American. He’s a white dude, who happened to go to a historically black law school and who runs a law firm with two female lawyers of color. And while he’s getting lots of Twitter love today, he points out that he’s been blogging about these issues for a long time – see this post on prosecuting abusive prosecutors where he features a friend he went to NC State with.

But while Greg’s an interesting figure, what’s important about his rant – IMHO – is that he doesn’t address this as a case of a rogue cop potentially ruining a young man’s life. He sees this as a systemic problem, and as a form of police brutality. Greg’s take may focus on this as a manifestation of a greedy and out-of-control state (he is a libertarian, after all), but he’s absolutely right to point out that when court systems are forced to become partially or entirely self-financing, there’s a strong pressure to increase prosecutions, even when those prosecutions are entirely bogus. Even if Greg’s rant ends up somehow leading to the arresting officer being sanctioned or otherwise punished, the problem he identifies is a systemic one – set up a system where courts need to prosecute people to survive and they will prosecute a lot of people.

I was especially struck by Greg’s identification of this arrest as a form of brutality. It’s a form that’s hard for most white people to see – this young man wasn’t beaten up, wasn’t imprisoned, wasn’t shot. But he was terrified. And his encounters with law enforcement going forward will be colored by the knowledge that power can and will be exercised arbitrarily based on his status as a young black male.

When we look at questions like whether predictive policing is fair and ethical, we need to understand that not all encounters between citizens and police are handled in the most ethical and professional manner we’d like to see. Populations that have grown up with a long tradition of being harassed and brutalized by police are understandably concerned about strategies that identify “hot spots” and promise additional “attention” to those areas, which often turn out to be communities of color.

In watching debates about policing after Ferguson, it’s hard not to be struck by the importance that imagery can have in disputes between police and citizens. Without his mother’s photographs, Greg’s client would likely have been convicted based on the officer’s testimony. Without Feidin Santana’s video, we would never have known that Walter Scott was murdered by officer Michael Slager. And so it makes sense that activists – and the President – would push for officer-worn body cameras.

But imagery alone doesn’t change flawed systems – the video of Eric Garner choking to death wasn’t enough to indict the officers who arrested him in Staten Island. Greg Doucette’s story points to the fact that problems with criminal justice in the US are problems of structural injustice and racism, that a system where power is not held accountable will veer towards abuse and where financial incentives to prosecute crimes leads to unjustifiable prosecution. Props to Greg for identifying this as a structural problem and looking for ways to fix it, and to all defense attorneys who work hard, with little recognition, to fight for the rights of their clients in a system that is often biased against them.