Cross: Greg Prickett on Cop To Lawyer

Oct. 14, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — Ed. Note: Scott Greenfield “crosses” Fort Worth, Texas, criminal defense lawyer Greg Prickett, who spent 20 years as a cop before turning to the law.

Q. You did 20 years “on the job” before you became a lawyer. What made you decide on a career in law enforcement in the first place?

A. I wasn’t planning on it, I was going to go to college and be a mechanical engineer like my father, but I got involved in a Boy Scout Law Enforcement Explorer program in high school and loved it.

Q. What did you love about it? Be real about this. What was it that made you say, this is what I want to be?
A. We did ride-alongs, and this was before the police were overly worried about liability. I was able to see police solve problems (sometimes by arresting people, sometimes not), and I got to see exactly what they do. It wasn’t like the TV shows, there was a lot of boredom, but there was also excitement. In the 2 or 3 years I did that, I rolled on everything from report calls, to heart attacks (and rode with the victim in the box to the ER, holding the oxygen mask while the EMT did chest compressions), to a traffic stop where the officer almost had to shoot the driver (who was having a flashback to the Korean War and thought we were North Koreans/Chinese). It’s hard to explain, but it gets in your blood. I just loved it.
Q. When you left the Academy, were you “retaught” the job by your training and senior cops?
A. Yes, and I did the same later as a field training officer (FTO). All the academy does is give you a basic understanding, in much the same way that law school and the bar give a baby lawyer the basic knowledge he or she needs to survive in a courtroom. In both instances, the baby lawyer and the rookie officer really don’t know what’s going on without guidance from a more experienced lawyer or an FTO.
Q. What was “retaught”?  What did you learn on the street that the Academy didn’t teach you? What did you learn on the street that was different than what the Academy taught you?
A. It’s hard to say. The academy gave you book knowledge. I was the valedictorian of my academy class, but it took working with my FTO and the experienced officers to really learn how to deal with people. I learned how to read people on the street, how to read a situation. It is a skill that no amount of book learning or classroom exercises can teach you. Some things that work real well in a controlled environment, like a technique called “speed-cuffing,” don’t work at all on the street where the subjects are not always compliant. You learn that even with lights and sirens on, people still don’t pay attention and will run into you, pull in front of you, etc.
Q. Did you believe that you were on the side of the good guys as a cop?  Who were the “bad guys” as far as you were concerned?
A. Yes, I generally believe that most cops are the good guys. For that matter, most people who either commit a crime once or as a habit are not “bad” people, they are just people. There are some, however, that are just evil. I don’t know how to explain it, but you can see in their eyes. Sociopaths, really, who don’t care about anyone but themselves.
Q. So there was no sense of “us against them”? The question isn’t whether “most cops are good buys,” but whether there was a culture of sides, good and evil, and you picked the good guy side.
A. The longer a cop is on the street, the more a sense of us against them kicks in. But it is not as black and white as you indicate, not as much as a good vs. evil, but a sense that the public does not understand what cops do and why they do it. We used to divide people into two groups, the victim a—holes and the criminal a—holes. The victims wanted to know why their brand new TV was stolen off of their front porch (right out from under the neon-sign blinking “steal me”) and why weren’t we dusting for fingerprints. The criminals were just that, burglars and thieves.
Q. Did you perceive your duty as getting the bad guys off the street, no matter what?
A. No. My job was first to protect people from harm. After that, it was my job to gather evidence so that the DA could make their case in court. It wasn’t my job to convict the bad guy.
Q. Were you really able to dissociate your job of collecting evidence from the ultimate goal of conviction? That seems nearly impossible to do?
A. I think most officers do have a difficult time with that. I know that many officers would get really upset if they were beat over a traffic ticket. I think that working for the lieutenant I mention below is the reason I could disassociate the two areas. While I was working for him, I would read proposed legislation and prepare a draft of what our position should be, which often was something that I disagreed with. An example was concealed carry—at the time it was not allowed in Texas and the police department opposed the bills that would have made it legal. I disagreed with that, but I wrote a position paper opposing it anyway. It taught me to look at both sides of an argument, and to look at what my role was in a dispassionate manner.
Q.  When you prepared your reports, talked to prosecutors, testified in court, did you “fill in the blanks” in order to make sure that the bad guys wouldn’t be able to find holes to beat the rap?
A. No.
Q. Did you know of any other cops who did so?  If so, what did you think about it?
A. I never knew of a cop in our area that would lie or embellish something on the stand. On the contrary, I saw a number of cases where the officer would tell the truth, knowing that it would result in an acquittal because it would raise a reasonable doubt. They got mad about losing, but they didn’t lie.
You also have to remember that cops are professional witnesses. We testify all the time and the more practice at something one has, the better one performs (normally). We knew to only answer the question asked, not the question that the defense counsel should have asked.
Q. As a cop, you got into a few “skirmishes” along the way, people suing you or filing complaints about you for alleged misconduct. Did being on the accused side of the fence change your perspective?
A. Not really, even going through a federal lawsuit did not change my perspective.
Q. Was it different when you were the falsely accused than when a perp claimed to be the falsely accused?
A. Not normally. In most of the cases where a defendant claimed to be falsely accused, they were not. We either had video or fingerprints or DNA, etc. I never had a case where I thought that the issue was even close, but I was lucky. I know a couple of officers in other departments that really stressed over that issue, making sure that they had the right guy.

In the federal lawsuit, the Texas AG’s office backed us all the way. At the first settlement talk, the AAG told the plaintiff’s lawyer that we would only settle if they walked away from the case with nothing. After the MSJ was rejected (there was a question of fact), the AG’s office took it to the Fifth Circuit on an interlocutory appeal. After the Fifth Circuit affirmed, but narrowed the grounds the way we wanted, the AAG played hardball at mediation (our counter to their request for $250K was $15K to settle the case). I felt confident the entire way through the trial, until the jury retired to deliberate. Then I stressed, wondering if those eight men and women were going to get it right (they did).

Q. Was there any point where you did something, whether use more force than you could have, escalated a situation when you could have de-escalated it, which you now realize would have been better handled differently?
A. Sure, but there were also points where I could have used more force than I did, including several where I would have been justified in using deadly force but did not. I tried to evaluate every situation after the fact to determine how I could improve.
Q. Did you ever stand by as a fellow police officer engaged in misconduct and abuse? What were the motivations for speaking out or keeping silent?
A. That question is very broad, so I’m going to focus on the use of force aspect of it. I never saw another officer who was with my department engage in behavior that I felt was inappropriate. I saw several where the officer was about to twist off on a suspect, but in each of those cases a sergeant or other officer also saw it and headed it off before it went bad. I saw one officer with another agency pepper-spray a handcuffed prisoner, and I talked to his sergeant about it. I don’t know what happened on the matter.
Q. Now that you’re a lawyer on the side of truth and justice, do you look at police officers differently?
A. Are they still the “good guys,” or are they only as good as the worst thing they’ve done? No, I still look at police officers the same, but you have to understand that most officers do not and did not have the same outlook as I did. Most police officers look at things from a black and white, good or bad, very binary perspective. I was lucky, in my second year as a police officer, I got pulled off of the street for a special assignment to help my lieutenant. The lieutenant, who had earned his law degree at night school while working full-time as a cop, was the legislative coordinator for the Dallas Police, and I was tasked with helping him. He treated it like an apprenticeship and taught me a lot, including how to Shepardize a case and to use pocket parts (there was no internet then). Working with him for that year gave me a whole new perspective on law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
Q. As a lawyer, do you use your knowledge of police culture and tactics to challenge a cop on the stand?  Do you have any qualms about it?
A. Absolutely I use my knowledge of police work and tactics. As a defense attorney, it is my job to zealously represent my client to the best of my ability. It’s my job and I have no hesitation or qualms about it.
Q. You knew you were going to catch a lot of grief for your post on Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann’s killing of Tamir Rice. Do you think that people just don’t “get” the decisions a cop has to make when faced with a threat?
A. Yes, I knew that most people were not going to take the same position as I do on the legality of the shooting. I think that it is impossible for the average citizen to really understand what police officers have to do in those types of circumstances. That is what I was referring to when I said that the public does not understand what cops do and why they do it. As Crawford noted on p. 5 of her report, the focus needs to be on the weapon and the actions, or the officer dies.
It’s clear that the general public does not understand the dynamics of an armed or potentially armed encounter, based on the reaction to my encounter with a guy with a hacksaw. I’ve also been at arms-length from a burglar in a building holding a metal bar over his head (and didn’t shoot him), held my gun next to a driver’s head while his hand was about six-inches away from a butcher knife he had been reaching for, held many people at gunpoint while making felony arrests, but didn’t shoot any of them, nor feel the need to shoot any of them. In none of those cases was there a clear feeling that I was in fear of my life—which I felt without any question in the case with the hacksaw.
The point that most people don’t understand is that while they have all the time in the world to second-guess what officers do, the officer has to make a decision right then, instantly, and then to live with that decision. Had I been faster on the draw that day over 25 years ago, I would have had to live with the consequences. I have no doubt in my mind that I would have been cleared, and there is no doubt in my mind that I, or any one else, officer or civilian, would have been justified under the same circumstances.
Q. While I know you fault Office Frank Garmback for pulling up too close to Tamir Rice, is there anything that Loehmann could have done that would have ended the confrontation without anyone dying?
A. I don’t think that Loehmann had any options that were viable. Look at Crawford’s report where she discusses the simulation used by the FBI. If you wait for the subject to draw the gun, you’re dead. I do fault Garmback for driving right up to Rice, who was the suspect. He left Loehmann with no options, no time, and no space.

The Bail Bondsman’s Fee

Bail was set for Arthur Bogarez in the amount of $2 million, a high bail for sure but not an unreasonable one given the circumstances.  He was charged in a no-fault insurance scam, and found in Puerto Rico, where he was extradited to Brooklyn.  There was good reason to believe he was a flight risk if released.

But the court didn’t just set high bail. It also required an examination of surety, a hearing to ascertain whether the monies used for bail came from legitimate sources or his crimes, and whether the surety, the person(s) posting bail were doing so because they had a real affiliation to Bogarez or were straw sureties, people pretending to put up the bail as a front.

His wife, Karine Gevorkyan, sought out a bail bond for her husband’s release, and was turned down by two bail bondsmen. To be clear, bail bondsmen do not turn down $2 million bonds lightly. These are hugely profitable, and only turn unprofitable for two reasons: the defendant skips town or they aren’t going to be able to get the bond through, going through a lot of work and ending up with bupkis. Not to be dismissive of bondsmen, but they really hate ending up empty handed. Bail bonds are definitely intended as a profit-making business. Continue reading →

Tamir Rice: Bad Law And Worse “Law”

I’ve left little doubt as to how I view the murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.  Others disagree, with a heavy dose of “cop perspective” that an outsider can’t appreciate.  To find oneself on the business end of a threat to one’s life tends to weigh heavily on right and wrong, and the fine line between kill or be killed doesn’t make for an easy choice.

But whether Cleveland police Officer Timothy Loehmann was a killer or a cop invoking the First Rule of Policing is a matter of law, for better or worse.  My analysis of the law of Graham v. Connor is that it’s for the worst. The law permits a cop who pre-emptively perceives, through his magic cop voodoo, a deadly threat to kill first.  It’s very protective of police lives. It’s a death warrant for everyone else.  It’s bad law.

Yet, the backlash to the twin reports rationalizing a needless killing went orthogonal, abandoning law altogether:

But the reports show exactly what’s wrong with the dialogue surrounding police shootings. Instead of asking whether Loehmann’s actions were ethical, moral, or best practices, the conversation immediately shifts to whether they were legal. But legality doesn’t tell us anything about whether the shooting was preventable or acceptable — and that’s really what we should care about.

Continue reading →

At UCLA, A Grown-Up Tells Children They Can’t Police Speech (Update)

A fraternity and sorority decided to throw a party, already a problematic act of oppression from gender-restricted organizations who would likely serve alcoholic beverages that could lead to rampant rape and sexual assault. But they didn’t stop there.

The local chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon and the sorority Alpha Phi co-hosted the “Kanye Western”-themed party Tuesday night, with costumes playing off Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian, the Daily Bruin reported. 

Surely, this would offend, and it did.

Leaders of student groups, such as the Afrikan Student Union, demanded a response from the university, noting the party was held during “Black Bruin Welcome Week.”

Continue reading →

Body Cams, Policy And The Public’s “Right” To Know

At HuffPo, Nick Wing raises questions arising from police department policies on the disclosure of body cam footage.  Remember when some cops resisted the idea of wearing body cams? What about their privacy? What about the cost?

What about the privacy of people they dealt with during a shift who fell far short of newsworthy, who weren’t having their best day, who didn’t deserve to be subject to public exposure, ridicule perhaps, for having the misfortune of crossing paths with a cop?

What about the public’s right to know?

As the public searches for answers about what happened on that afternoon in March, a new set of concerns has emerged about police officers’ use of body cameras — and how, or if, the devices will promote accountability and transparency if the policies that govern the footage are overly restrictive. Continue reading →

Columbus Day at the Outrage Factory

My pal, Marco Randazza, is pretty keen on Columbus Day.  He’s of Italian heritage, and, well, it’s not as if Italians get a lot of holidays for one of their tribe. Columbus Day is pretty much it.

This is COLUMBUS DAY.

I’d like to invite anyone whose name ends with a vowel (Persians excluded) to raise their hands, extend their middle fingers, and flip off the Native Americans, the hippies, and everyone else in the International Association of Crybabies who has a piss and a moan about Christopher Columbus.

This is not “indigenous people’s day,” it is not “la dia de la raza” and it isn’t frigging “wear a beret, listen to Joni Mitchell, and wear patchoulli day.”

It’s unclear how Joni Mitchell is to blame, but musical choices are hard to explain. That said, John Oliver asked, “how is this still a thing?”  There is a laundry list of complaints about Columbus, ranging from his “discovering” a place where people already lived, to his personal traits: Continue reading →

Andrew McCarthy’s Fond Memories Of His Mandatory Minimum Youth

Andy begins with a quote he says he heard from a judge back when he was a baby prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

I know you lied in your testimony, but I understand why you believed you had to do it.”

If there was an audible sound in the courtroom after these words left the lips of the sentencing judge, it was my jaw caroming off the floor. I was a young prosecutor and it was the mid Eighties, before federal sentencing reforms substituted the public’s sensibilities for the judges’ in the matter of serious crime.

He goes on to claim that the judge then let a defendant, convicted of selling coke, compounded by perjury, walk.  No cite. No case name. No nothing. I call bullshit. Before the sentencing guidelines were held mandatory in Mistretta, no one walked out the door for drug dealing. Continue reading →

Tamir Rice’s Basically Reasonable Murder

It’s been 11 months since 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by Police Officer Timothy Loehmann.  After the inexplicably long “investigation” period, Cuyahoga County prosecutor finally released two reports on the killing. They did so yesterday, a Saturday, the day when news gets released to die in silence.

The conclusion was foregone: The murder was reasonable.

The county prosecutor hired two “outsiders,” meaning they weren’t connected to the Cleveland Police Department. But as outsiders go, they were as inside as it gets. There was the report of retired FBI agent Kimberly A. Crawford.  And there was the report of S. Lamar Sims, a Colorado prosecutor. Both arrived at the only conclusion they could, given their mandate.

“Officer Loehmann’s belief that Rice posed a threat of serious physical harm or death was objectively reasonable as was his response to that perceived threat.”

Continue reading →

So Sayeth The Code

At Fault Lines, Jessica Gabel Cino emphasized the magical influence DNA has had on the criminal justice system.

With the exception of DNA, no single forensic technique has the potential ability to establish a definitive link of an evidence sample to its source.   Potential, however, can be very different from reality, and even DNA evidence has its limitations and weaknesses. The latest reality check: the statistics utilized in the interpretation of DNA mixture evidence could be so wrong that they require retesting of thousands of cases.

That reality check, brought to you courtesy of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which was aware of the problem for a while but finally got around to making it public, is that DNA mixture analysis not only failed to meet the one in gazillion probability to which prosecution analysts typically testified, but was in fact one in fifty.  Oops. Sorry. We bad.

But that comes from the maturation process of science, a reality that’s always denied until it can’t be denied any longer. Today’s gold standard is tomorrow’s total malarkey. Continue reading →

Don’t Be This Guy

Having been accused once or twice of being a quart or two low on empathy due to my refusal to allow personal feelings to trump reason, I approached an op-ed in the Chicago Maroon with my usual trepidation. It was written by Lily Grossbard, “a first-year in the College majoring in gender and sexuality studies.”  The headline was, “The myth of the coddled college student.”

Geez, I wonder what she’s gonna write.

Trigger warnings are frequently lampooned as “coddling” students, or as shielding them from exposure to the difficulties of “the real world.” I would argue, however, that not only are trigger warnings of crucial importance for protecting the emotional and physical health of the student body at large, but they also actually allow for, and even promote the discussion of triggering topics.

Continue reading →