, packed the nation\u2019s prisons. The number of people incarcerated has quintupled in the past 40 years, giving the United States the highest rate in the world, with black people incarcerated at more than five-times the rate of white people.<\/span><\/p>\nProsecutors have tremendous power \u2013 not just about which cases to pursue, but what the outcome should be. Through plea bargains and sentencing, they have immense control over people\u2019s futures. Deberry looks at her job holistically. \u201cI\u2019m not the police, and there are not many prosecutors offices who will say that,\u201d she said. \u201cMy job is to get to the truth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nShe emphasizes that the prosecutor represents the commonwealth. That includes the victim, but it also includes the community <\/span>and <\/span><\/i>the defendant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDeberry said she will focus her office\u2019s resources on prosecuting homicide and violent felonies instead of low-level crimes like marijuana possession for personal use. She also implemented a pretrial release policy that enables people to get out of jail on a written promise to appear in court \u2013 limiting the use of cash bail \u2013 which has led to a 12 percent decrease in the jail population.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThere are a couple of ways you can do this job,\u201d Deberry said, noting that her approach is more difficult. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier to be tough on crime because you don\u2019t have to think about your impact on people\u2019s lives or on the community. That makes it easier to do the work and it leaves it on your desk\u2026 it\u2019s harder to look at each individual case and look at each defendant as a human being.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nRuffled feathers<\/b><\/h2>\n Occasionally you can see glimpses of how she has challenged courthouse norms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDuring homicide status day \u2013 which occurs four times a year to give the judge an update on all of the pending homicide cases \u2013 Deberry asked a court deputy to retrieve a defendant from jail so he could hear an update on his case. The deputy refused, arguing that it would cause too much chaos in the courtroom. He said they never brought defendants under the former district attorney. Deberry tensed up, frustrated that he would challenge her authority in open court.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAfter a lot of back and forth, she eventually got her way. But Deberry was not happy.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cCorporal!\u201d She shouted as he was stepping onto the elevator. When he turned around, she looked him in the eye and said,<\/span> \u201cWhen I request a defendant, the defendant comes.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIt is important that a defendant be present for a hearing pertaining to his rights,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHe replied that he was only doing his job to avoid a disruption and that he reports to the sheriff, not her.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI absolutely respect what you do in there in terms of safety and security,\u201d Deberry said. \u201cBut we need to come to an understanding about who is in charge of that courtroom. When I am standing outside on the steps of the courthouse, I defer to the sheriff. But inside the courtroom, I have the final say as the elected district attorney.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBack in her office, she told her prosecutors about the incident. \u201cI am slow to offend,\u201d she said while leaning on the door frame, but this had irked her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nKendra Montgomery-Blinn, an assistant district attorney, agreed with her boss and said that she thinks all defendants should be present for homicide status day. \u201cOtherwise they won\u2019t see the light of a courtroom for like two years,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDeberry said policies have been easier to change than attitudes.\u00a0 \u201cThe interaction with the bailiff today shows that the culture in the courtroom hasn\u2019t changed as much as it should have.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nNew blood<\/b><\/h2>\n The 50% turnover in her legal team gave Deberry an opportunity to shift the focus in her office. Most of her hires had been defense attorneys or worked in academia, which Deberry says has brought fresh perspectives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nNot everyone believes her new hires have what it takes.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cFrankly, almost everyone with experience has left,\u201d said Daniel Meier, a criminal defense attorney who ran against Deberry for district attorney in the 2018 primary. \u201cYou need people who actually know the system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBut Deberry says their experience outside the role of prosecutor is precisely what equips them to implement her reforms.<\/span><\/p>\nFor example, she hired Beth Hopkins Thomas, former juvenile defense attorney and school teacher, to handle all juvenile cases, from low-level nonviolent crimes to homicide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTogether she and Deberry made the decision to stop taking court referrals for school based-incidents because they believe that students\u2019 behavioral challenges are better handled by educators. Kids who are exposed to the criminal justice system often grow into adults who stay in the criminal justice system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI was a teacher before I went to law school and I watched that pipeline stem from my school,\u201d Hopkins Thomas said. \u201cHaving the ability to say we are not going to be participating in this pipeline is very empowering.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nMeier said that Deberry\u2019s hires, many of whom come from social justice backgrounds, don\u2019t have the right stomach for prosecuting criminals.\u00a0 He pointed to Alyson Grine \u2014 a prosecutor for homicide and violent crimes \u2014 as an example. \u201cShe went from a liberal position \u2013 reform the system, fight racial bias \u2013 to having to send people to prison for the rest of their lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDeberry said the heavy caseload can quickly tempt her new hires to be more prosecutorial than they expected, so they are constantly having conversations to ask themselves \u201cnot only can we prosecute this, but should we?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWe see horrible things. It is natural as a human being to respond to those.\u201d She said even if the crime is nonviolent, the desire for retribution is often a natural reflex. \u201cAnd so we really just want to always be double checking ourselves and saying, is our response getting to the truth? Is it fair? Is it just?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nA national movement<\/b><\/h2>\n Deberry is part of a new movement of progressive prosecutors. They come together frequently through an organization called Fair and Just Prosecution that is trying to redefine the role of district attorneys.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMembers have traveled to Germany and Portugal to compare other countries\u2019 approaches to justice. \u201cThe number one thing I learned from both of those places \u2014 that I already knew but is driven home when you go somewhere else \u2014 is how punitive we are in the United States,\u201d Deberry said. \u201cWe really like to punish people and we think of that almost as a virtue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nDeberry is particularly close to Rachael Rollins, the district attorney from Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which includes Boston. Rollins took office the day before Deberry and the two have a lot in common.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cParticularly the black female DAs, we have a text chain we are all in. We like to remain in contact with each other. If somebody has a particularly terrible day, we are there for each other, which is really nice,\u201d Rollins said.<\/span><\/p>\nAs a woman of color from the rural South, Deberry faced countless obstacles to get where she is today. In high school when she interviewed for a prestigious scholarship at the University of Chapel Hill, she was accused of plagiarizing her essay by one of the committee members. \u201cHe just could not believe that a black kid from Hamlet could have written it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI thought I was growing up in an America where I could do anything, but really there were other people making these decisions about what schools I got to go to, and what classes I got to take, even what schools I applied to.\u201d When she decided to apply to Princeton, she got a lot of pushback from guidance counselors and teachers.\u00a0 \u201cThere was a lot of discouragement because they thought I was doing something that was ‘above my raisin\u2019.\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/span><\/p>\nBoth Rollins and Deberry also have family members who have been involved with the justice system. After law school and some time practicing in D.C., Deberry returned to her hometown of Hamlet, North Carolina, and she was asked to defend her cousin who was charged with murder.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI saw people who I had grown up with involved in the criminal justice system, many of whom had never left and did not finish high school,\u201d Deberry said. \u201cI also saw how, in a community that was <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> majority black, the criminal justice system is almost <\/span>entirely<\/span><\/i> black.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThose experiences are why Deberry balks at comments from Meier, who says she \u201chas a fundamental lack of understanding of the system,\u201d and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who says that the work of progressive prosecutors is \u201c<\/span>demoralizing to law enforcement and dangerous to public safety.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI would say in response to that, they are the ones who don\u2019t understand the role of the prosecutor,\u201d Deberry said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI think we understand fully what the discretion of prosecutors has wrought in this country. There was nothing wrong with the discretion of the prosecutor for the hundreds of years in which it was used to marginalize and criminalize people. Now all of a sudden, because people who look like me have that discretion, they want to paint it as illegitimate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nShe makes a similar point when she introduces herself in speeches:<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI am Satana Deberry,\u201d she says. \u201cI am the district attorney of the 16th prosecutorial district\u2026 I tell you my name, not because you don\u2019t know it. I tell you my name because every day in this country and this community there are people who go nameless. People who have been failed by one system after another. People who often look like me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nUpdate: This story has been corrected with details about Deberry’s office, her Chucks and the role of prosecutor Alyson Grine.<\/span> \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you walk into the square gray box that is the Durham County courthouse, you find yourself in a sterile administrative wasteland of brownish stone…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75,77,246],"class_list":["post-1730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courthouse-project","tag-crime","tag-criminal-justice-reform","tag-satana-deberry","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n
Satana Deberry and the quest to reform justice in Durham - 9th Street Journal<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n