Fortunately, we had infinite trust in the collective expertise of our team. We were not disappointed. The local attorneys were very familiar with Chattanooga, its city attorneys, police department, and history. Interestingly, Amelia Roberts was the daughter of Gene Roberts, a past fire and police commissioner and a former mayor of Chattanooga. She was also a student I taught when she was in high school. She and John Wolfe were experienced with representing clients in social justice matters. The New York firm included attorneys with years of experience and success with social justice litigation, including clients involved in high-profile cases known nationwide. The collective experience and documentation of successful litigation positioned the New York firm’s attorneys as legal experts in handling wrongful death and police misconduct cases.
Our attorneys were experienced in these matters, but we were not. I accumulated boxes of documents related to police brutality. In preparation for this manuscript, I went to attorney Wolfe’s office a few years ago to review his Prater lawsuit files. I was shocked by the volume of information he had compiled. As I reviewed his documents, I was thrust into “information overload.” I can only imagine the amount of information collected by the New York attorneys. All things considered, our case created a lot of research material.
The wrongful death lawsuit filing was officially documented on January 11, 2006, two years and seven days after Leslie’s homicide. Federal case 1:04-cv-00385 was filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dwight, Stefan, and I were identified as the plaintiffs. Listed among defendants were Jonathan Mance, Keith Hudgins, Daniel Anderson, and Gregory Chambers, the four officers whose irresponsible actions caused Leslie’s death. A number of other officers and supervisors with particular relationships to the case were also named as defendants. Additionally, Chief Steve Parks and former chief of police Jimmie Dotson, in their individual and official capacity, and the City of Chattanooga, a Tennessee Municipal Corporation, were listed as defendants. Former mayor Bob Corker and another person representing the Chattanooga City Council were called to the scene of Leslie’s death but were not named in the lawsuit. Prior to filing the lawsuit, a scheduling order conference was held on January 10, 2006. Representing us at that conference were local attorney Amelia C. Roberts and Deborah L. Cornwall and Nick J. Brustin by telephone from New York. Present and representing the defendants were Phillip A. Noblett, Michael A. McMahan, and Crystal R. Freiberg.
The language in the lawsuit was very precise legalese, and I won’t burden this account with the details of the document. It is easy to locate it through social media for those who are interested. However, the following thirteen items were listed as Claims for Relief, plus the final entry of Prayer for Relief:
First Claim for Relief: Individuals Defendants
Second Claim for Relief: Substantive Due Process
Third Claim for Relief: Conspiracy to Violate
Fourth Claim for Relief: Supervisory Liability
Fifth Claim for Relief: First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments and Privacy Violations
Sixth Claim for Relief: Monell Claim (Monell is shorthand for a legal principle under the federal civil rights laws, particularly what is called Section 1983, which is the law that allows one to bring suit for a civil rights violation)18
Seventh Claim for Relief: Failure to Provide Medical Treatment
Eighth Claim for Relief: Failure to Intercede
Ninth Claim for Relief: Wrongful Death
Tenth Claim for Relief: Loss of Consortium
Eleventh Claim for Relief: Negligence
Twelfth Claim for Relief: Negligent Training and Supervision
Thirteenth Claim for Relief: Assault and Battery
Under the heading of Prayer for Relief, the Plaintiffs pray that the court:
Award Plaintiffs compensatory damages against Defendants in an amount to be determined at trial, including but not limited to pain and suffering of the deceased;
Award Plaintiffs punitive damages for their civil rights claim against individual Defendants an amount to be determined at trial;
Award Plaintiffs the reasonable funeral and burial expenses incurred as a result of this wrong death;
Award Plaintiffs damages for their loss of consortium, pain and suffering;
Award reasonable attorney fees;
Declare Defendants actions unconstitutional and enjoin Defendants from the unconstitutional violations complained of herein;
Grant the Plaintiffs a trial by jury; and
Grant such other relief as may be just and equitable.
As in all lawsuits of this nature, there is a possibility of the case being resolved by settlement, but that potential outcome is initially unknown. At the beginning of the lawsuit, we felt that we would follow the scheduling order and proceed to court. The pretrial conference was set for April 2, 2007, followed by the jury trial beginning on April 16, 2007. With the trial date being more than three years after Leslie’s homicide, it was anticipated that the trial date could be only one of the likely changes. The most interesting change to me was that we ended up dealing with three different judges.
Whenever there was a change in judges, the newly assigned person requested time to become familiar with the case, which resulted in slowing the process. One judge stayed on the case for six months and then decided to recuse himself. It angered us, because his actions caused months of wasted time. During all that time, there was no activity on the case. I didn’t understand why it took him so long to feel that he had a conflict of interest. He belonged to the same church we attended when we lived in Chattanooga, but our only other similarity was that we were all African Americans. In two prior cases, potentially high profile and involving African American males with status in the community, he recused himself. Was this a trend?
We considered that judge to be a part of the suspicious slowing-down process. He was probably less familiar with us than the other judges were with some of the defendants, considering the suspected inbreeding environment often common within the judicial system. White judges handle cases of white people all the time. So, why couldn’t an African American judge handle our case? We weren’t seeking favors. It didn’t matter to me the skin color of the presiding judge. Clearly, we received no advantages based on skin color, but we didn’t want to be disadvantaged either. When Leslie was killed, the chief of police was African American, one of the officers named in the lawsuit was African American, and the first judge assigned to the case was African American. I think that there are times when blacks, in those law enforcement positions, are harder on other blacks. They go overboard in proving to whites that they are not giving African Americans “a break.” We were not seeking special considerations, only fairness and justice.
I always felt that the city did not want a jury trial. As confirmation of those feelings, the city attorneys contacted our legal team to request a mediation. Attorney Nick Brustin informed me of their request. My initial response was “No.” There had been no indication that they wanted to extend fairness and justice toward us. I just wanted to go to court. Mr. Brustin advised that it would be useful to meet with them to see what they had to say, but we did not have to agree to anything. Because we trusted our attorneys, we agreed to the mediation.
On May 16, 2006, mediation occurred in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the Howard Baker Federal Building. Dwight, Stefan, and I attended with three of our attorneys. Nick Brustin and Barry Scheck had flown in from New York, and John Wolfe drove over from Chattanooga. The Chattanooga city attorney and his two associates attended. The Chattanooga chief of police did not attend, sending an assistant chief instead. That assistant was an African American man who happened to have been friends with one of Dwight’s sisters when they were teenagers. Of course, that fact was not revealed at the meeting. The facilitator of the mediation was a retired federal judge who convened me
diations as a consultant.
Dwight and I had never been involved in a mediation of this nature, and this was the first meeting that Stefan had attended related to Leslie’s death. The mediator began by explaining the process. Dwight, Stefan, and I were primarily in the role of students. Everyone else in the room had prior experience with these types of mediations. I felt that the information was presented clearly and in a manner that did not make us feel intimidated. In fact, I was very impressed with the professional posture of the facilitator. We had no choice in his selection, but I was pleased.
The joint proceeding was held in a very nice conference room, with audiovisual equipment available. The city’s representatives and our team sat at opposite sides of the conference table, with the mediator at the head. Barry Scheck sat to the immediate left of the mediator. Prior to the official beginning of the meeting, I remember that the facilitator seemed thrilled to be in the presence of Mr. Scheck. You would have thought that a rock star was in the room. In the legal profession, I suppose Barry did hold that seat of prominence. He told Barry that he had long admired his work and had read his books.
The mediator officially opened the session with introductions. I was surprised that one of the city’s attorneys was dressed in a wrinkled suit. My impression was he wasn’t serious about the meeting. The mediator explained that we would begin with a joint session in which both sides would hear the same discussion, mostly about the process and expectations for the meeting. After our initial time together, the two sides would be separated into different rooms. We would remain in the conference room, and the city’s representatives would go to another room. The mediator would go back and forth between the two groups to inform each group of the other’s deliberations. The mediator would also maintain order and guide the discussion toward an anticipated conclusion of what would be offered by the defendants and what would be accepted by the plaintiffs. At the end of the process, there would be another joint time with both sides to present their decision and, if needed, further work toward a combined agreement. The process was fascinating.
Before we separated into two groups, I asked if everyone had seen the video in which Dwight, Spen, and I shared memories of Leslie. The response was “No.” I expressed that, in order for everyone in the room to have the same sense of the impact the family felt from Leslie’s death, the video should be shown. Stefan had not seen the video. All of the city’s representatives had viewed it, except the police department’s representative. The mediator agreed to show the video, which was difficult for Stefan to watch. He cried during the entire showing, because he loved his brother so much.
At the end of the video presentation, the city attorney, the one wearing the wrinkled suit, made an ignorant statement directed to Stefan. I cannot imagine what prompted him to say to Stefan, “Those police officers are very nice guys. If you got to know them, you would want to be their friends.” Immediately, I said, “Stefan would not want to be friends with those officers, because he does not have friends who are murderers.” During that dialogue, I noticed the facial expressions of the other attorneys with him. Their nonverbal cues seemed to be screaming at him, “Please shut up.” Instead of trying to bring us toward a place of conciliation, his words definitely widened the gap between us and them. After his words, my feeling was that we were not going to agree to anything they proposed that day. I wanted to see them in court. Interestingly, Barry Scheck stated with passion, “This case will probably end up being settled, because I would really like to try this case in court.”
I can’t tell you what was said when the mediator met with the city’s representatives. I only know his expressions to us confirmed our feelings that we had a good case. He based his comments on his legal knowledge and experience. We believed that we had not only a good case but also attorneys who were more experienced and better prepared than theirs. Because they were the ones who asked for mediation, they were in the position of trying to get us to agree to their offers. We were in the position of saying, “No.” After the “back-and-forth” period, the two sides came together again. I was disgusted that there was never any feeling that they were willing to offer some degree of accountability for the officers’ actions. They only wanted to offer money. Obviously, they came prepared with a figure. They offered more than one amount as a settlement. Each time, we would say, “No,” including the top figure that they had been authorized to offer. They didn’t understand that our wrongful death lawsuit was not about money; it was about some semblance of justice, change, and accountability.
The mediation ended in a stalemate, but it wasn’t a waste of time. We all learned a lot that day. We learned more of how they do business: just hurry and give family members a check so that they will disappear. They learned that we were not in a hurry and did not need their money in exchange for accepting Leslie’s homicide. The mediator’s attitude toward us is also etched in my memory. He seemed very compassionate and empathetic. In fact, I thanked him for his words of comfort, and his response to me was “I have sons.”
After the mediation, we met with our attorneys to process and further discuss our case. Fortunately, our attorneys were experienced with similar cases. Our challenge was to be patient. Because our attorneys had gotten to know us and understood our motives for legal action, they were not surprised that we rejected the monetary offer. After all, we came to mediation for information, not to get a check. We knew that we were fortunate that our attorneys were patient and also not money hungry, as documented by the fact that they took the case pro bono.
As the case proceeded toward a jury trial, numerous people contacted us with information they hoped was helpful. Some communication was about them or their loved ones being unfairly incarcerated, because of lies told by Chattanooga police officers. Other discussions were about aggressive and unnecessary tactics by police officers that resulted in physical injuries sustained by them, or injury or death of their family members. I mostly heard from mothers of sons. In one case, a sister called from the East Coast to talk about the police brutality death of her unarmed brother in Hamilton County, near the city limits of Chattanooga. In another case, my interaction was with a daughter of a victim; another letter was from a wife. It was interesting to me that they felt they could get some form of justice through us if we were able to receive justice for Leslie’s death. I now understand those feelings. When we hear of a rare instance in which a police officer is indicted and convicted of the murder of an unarmed citizen, we are pleased that the family received some degree of justice. In some strange way, their grief is our grief. I often wondered if the families who reached out to us felt disappointment because we eventually settled. Ultimately, our plight mirrored theirs in that we received no justice either.
Having the legal process extended is a strategy to have more time for the defendants to combat the accusations. It also serves to exhaust the family members of the deceased. Our experience was very different from that experienced by the family members of Freddie Gray in Baltimore19 and Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina.20 In those deaths, the city’s quick actions signaled an admission of guilt and accountability for police misconduct, even before the investigations were conclusive or any lawsuits filed. In the Gray and Scott cases, the city initiated legal action against the officers. In our case, everything seemed to proceed at a slow pace except for their sending the officers back in the field and trying to seek a quick settlement. There was never any indication that the officers would be held accountable. Judicial officials were slow to release documents; slow to set up dates for requested depositions; and, when we were moving forward to go to court, slow to reschedule a trial date.
To further complicate matters, we also dealt directly with three different police chiefs: Jimmie Dotson, who was replaced by Steve Parks on February 1, 2004; Parks, who retired at age fifty on December 31, 2006; and Freeman Cooper, who was confirmed by the Chattanooga City Council on December 19, 2006, to replace Parks. I never und
erstood why Dotson didn’t do the right thing. He had nothing to lose, since he was already preparing to leave Chattanooga when Leslie was killed. Also, Dotson was known as the Bible-carrying chief and ought to have been more attuned to Christian values. From our interactions with Parks, we felt that his actions were targeted toward preserving the officers’ jobs and reputations. Cooper was fair with us and showed a sense of empathy, but irrevocable damage had already occurred before his appointment. Cooper provided oversight of some of the ongoing demands of the lawsuit until his retirement in March 2010. At my request, he agreed that I could provide sensitivity training to police cadets indefinitely. When Cooper became the police chief, I sent him a copy of Norm Stamper’s book Breaking Rank. I can only hope that it helped him to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. After Cooper’s retirement, none of the subsequent chiefs in Chattanooga would allow me to speak with academy cadets. The department has tapes of my sessions, but I am not certain if they are using them.
While still preparing to go to court, we experienced other challenges. We received a letter from the United States Department of Justice. In summary, the letter stated that they had reviewed the case and determined that the Chattanooga Police Department and the city of Chattanooga were not responsible for Leslie’s death. I was shocked to read that letter, just as shocked as I was to find it in the mailbox. Neither our family nor any of our attorneys were ever notified that the Department of Justice was conducting an investigation. The investigation could not have been thorough. In a legitimate investigation, all sides of the issue are scrutinized. The federal government’s so-called investigation was very similar to the one reported by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation; they received information from the Chattanooga Police Department and merely sanctioned the self-serving outcome of that internal investigation.
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