. It is quintessential Doucette \u2014 funny, thorough, nerdy and crass.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThere is no profanity in the presentation, but I do tend to cuss a lot,\u201d he says, hovering at the bottom left of the screen and wearing a t-shirt from North Carolina Central University School of Law. Thirty seconds later, he calls his video \u201cboring as shit.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe video has attracted over 130,000 views \u2014 and some controversy. When someone in the comments section disputed one of his claims, Doucette weighed in: \u201cBasically every comment and reply you\u2019ve made here is wrong, it\u2019s actually impressive! Enjoy the Biden administration.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHe\u2019s a rascal and a reformer, a crusader for justice, or \u2014 if you\u2019re on the receiving end of his Twitter onslaught \u2014 a pain in the neck.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIf you\u2019re being a dick, he\u2019ll push back,\u201d said Kahran Myers-Davis, a former attorney at Doucette\u2019s firm. \u201cHe\u2019ll push back on you on Twitter, he\u2019ll push back on you in public. He\u2019ll push back on people in his real life who aren\u2019t living their values or who are being unethical or condescending or rude. That\u2019s just who he is.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n* * *<\/p>\n
Both times I interviewed Doucette, he appeared on my screen wearing black headphones and a gray shirt that said \u201cNCCU Trial Advocacy Board\u201d (does he only wear NCCU shirts?). Bald and 39 years old, he\u2019s a self-described \u201cfull-time curmudgeon, part-time Twitter celebrity, occasional attorney.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nDoucette talks like he tweets: non-stop, unfiltered, his words laced with zingers and occasional f-bombs, his face lit with an impish smile.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nUnlike most advocates for criminal justice reform, who come from the left, he\u2019s a conservative, though he abandoned the Republican party after President Trump\u2019s election in 2016 (he\u2019s now registered as unaffiliated). His watchdog mentality reflects his skepticism about the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI don’t trust the government,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you allow the government to steamroll people that don’t have power, they’re gonna steamroll the people that do, the first chance they get.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHis strategy is simple. \u201cYou have to keep the government in its little box. And if it ever steps out of the box, you smack it in the face and you put it back in the box.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDoucette grew up in Virginia Beach in a home where his mother and stepfather fought a lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>I grew up in the type of home many would consider \u2018white trash,\u2019\u201d Doucette wrote on the website for his state Senate campaign in 2016. \u201cPoor, frequent substance abuse, more frequent domestic violence (something so \u2018normal\u2019 in my life I didn\u2019t even know it was <\/span>called<\/span><\/i> \u2018domestic violence\u2019 until law school).<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nIn high school, he was recruited by Massachusetts Institute of Technology for its computer engineering program, but he decided on attending North Carolina State University because tuition was cheaper.<\/span><\/p>\nThen, a setback: his parents refused to provide him with tax information, so Doucette couldn\u2019t qualify for financial aid. He dropped out, worked odd jobs, lived out of his truck and used his girlfriend\u2019s dorm room to shower.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWhen he finally got enough money to enroll, he became president of the UNC Association of Student Governments, a group that includes student representatives from schools across North Carolina, including NC State. He eventually graduated with a degree in computer science.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDoucette was fun but in a \u201cnerdy\u201d kind of way, said Ashley Yopp, who met him through the Association of Student Governments. At parties, instead of playing beer pong, Doucette would be deep in conversation with someone about a new idea.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cHe talks big, but he doesn’t put on airs,\u201d Yopp said. \u201cHe is who he is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nIn August 2009, Doucette enrolled in NCCU\u2019s School of Law, a historically Black college in Durham. He picked NCCU because it was cheaper than UNC. After graduating, he wanted to start a nonprofit called \u201cNC SPICE\u201d that would be an incubator for other attorneys trying to set up their practices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe logo was a pepper grinder with the scales of justice, really slick, man,\u201d he said, rummaging through his computer for a picture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut Doucette hit a speed bump when the IRS stopped processing applications for nonprofit groups. So Doucette started his own firm \u201ckind of by accident.\u201d He chose Durham because of the resources and connections at NCCU. He was sworn in as an attorney in 2012. (He eventually founded the nonprofit and now works as its executive director.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHe started out focusing on business litigation and higher education law. He fell into criminal law by happenstance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cFor whatever reason,\u201d he said, \u201cI still had this old-school Republican notion that criminal defense lawyers are just icky creatures.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n* * *<\/p>\n
In November 2013, Doucette took on a client who was a student at NCCU and had been caught selling weed. It became a turning point in his legal career.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDuring their first conversation, according to Doucette, the student said he wanted to be \u201cDurham\u2019s weed man.\u201d The student had brought a business plan on how to sell weed, complete with marketing projections and a color-coded map of everywhere in the country it was legal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cYou know how you watch movies, and you hear the record-scratch moment, and everyone freezes? That\u2019s how it was during the client interview,\u201d Doucette recalled.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThough he thought it would be impossible to help the student receive a lenient sentence, Doucette took on the case.<\/span><\/p>\nIn February 2014, Doucette defended the student in court by arguing that the evidence for the case be suppressed. To his surprise, the court accepted his argument and dismissed the case.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nLater, in the hallway of the Durham courthouse, the client grabbed Doucette\u2019s arm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBro, you are a white Jesus,\u201d Doucette remembers him saying. \u201cThat was a miracle. Give me your business cards. I\u2019m going to send all of my customers to you.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSure enough, Doucette soon got a call. \u201c[The student] said you\u2019re a miracle worker. I caught a charge. I need your help,\u201d the caller told him. The next day, Doucette got two more calls. Then, in March, on his birthday, Doucette received an email announcing someone had bought him a domain: <\/span>www.durhamweedlawyer.com<\/span><\/a>. The client had put his marketing skills to work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cSo it ended up, by the middle of 2015, most of the people in Durham who were selling weed in a given part of town, I was their defense attorney,\u201d Doucette said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTo this day, many of his clients are still charged with drug-related crimes. He also represents protesters, whether from Moral Monday or Black Lives Matter \u2014 a part of his practice he describes as his \u201cministry.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI do stuff on Twitter, but I also like being in the courtroom and being able to defend people who are being oppressed by their government,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAt its peak, his law firm, which is located on 311 East Main Street, had multiple attorneys, interns and a receptionist. Then, in 2016, he made a longshot bid for state Senate in a district that includes Durham County. Though he won more votes than any Republican to run for the seat and got an endorsement from INDY Week, he still lost badly to incumbent Mike Woodard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIt was an \u201cincredibly stupid\u201d decision, he said \u2014 and it almost bankrupted his firm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nImmersing himself in his campaign meant less time for marketing and finding new clients. His business crumpled. His attorneys left. The next year was dreadful for Doucette.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve fallen into this rat race of churning through cases at the law firm to make rent each month,\u201d he wrote in a blog post in April 2017. \u201cBut don\u2019t really feel like I\u2019m moving forward toward any given objective beyond rent-paying (which is a fantastically low goal in life). It\u2019s terribly frustrating, especially for someone who\u2019s climbed up from how far down I was back in 2000. And the way forward is a complete mystery to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nToday, Doucette is the only employee at his firm. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, he works most days from home, where he lives with his wife, Jeanne Chen, an optometrist he married in October, and with his \u201ckids\u201d: a dog (Chance) and two cats (Biscuit and Oliver). When he goes into the office two times a week, it\u2019s very quiet, and he keeps iTunes playing in the background.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBeneath the cocky exterior, Doucette feels for others. Since 2015, he has organized an annual fundraiser to provide groceries for underprivileged elementary school kids in Durham. This year, he raised over $55,000. Lowes lent him an 18-wheeler to transport the 3,642 bags of groceries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cHe had that truly human ability to put himself into people\u2019s situations and to care for them as individuals,\u201d recalled Myers-Davis, Doucette\u2019s former attorney. \u201cMany of his clients of the firm, even folks that I\u2019ve worked with, have come back and said, \u2018You know, I\u2019m doing this and this because Greg gave me advice, not as my attorney, but as a person who really cared about me.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n* * *<\/p>\n
His strong feelings against police violence aren\u2019t new. He says he has been sharing videos of police misconduct for the past 13 years.<\/p>\nSelect your membership level and you can be part of Doucette’s #FSCK community.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cDo I hate police?\u201d he wrote in one of his tweets. \u201cNo. I hate raging incompetent cowboys w\/ badges financed by my tax money who clearly haven\u2019t had an eye exam recently.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nDoucette has also been ranting about police misconduct on his \u201c#Fsck \u2018Em All” podcast. Like its creator, the podcast is a little geeky. \u201cFsck\u201d is the name of a computer software tool for checking the consistency of a file system; Doucette describes his podcast as \u201cyour weekly consistency check on America\u2019s political and legal filesystems.\u201d It\u2019s also a source of income: <\/span>for $3 to $25 per month<\/span><\/a>, fans can gain exclusive access to bonus episodes and \u201c<\/span>Become part of the #Fsck community!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nIn his slight southern drawl, Doucette calls out cops from across the country: a North Carolina sex crimes detective who committed sex crimes, a Florida deputy who framed motorists for drug offenses, Texas cops who beat a domestic violence victim.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cHe is showing that you don\u2019t have to be Black to call out social injustice,\u201d said Deyaska Sweatman, one of Doucette\u2019s law school classmates. \u201cHis megaphone is loud, not just because he\u2019s really good in the Twitterverse. But his megaphone is loud because he really, really cares. He really has been fighting this fight from the beginning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nIn photo above, Doucette in front of the Durham County courthouse. Photo courtesy of T. Greg Doucette.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was five days after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, and T. Greg Doucette was mad.\u00a0 Doucette, a criminal defense and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","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":[77,214],"class_list":["post-4787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courthouse-project","tag-criminal-justice-reform","tag-police-reform","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n
\u2018He\u2019ll push back\u2019: T. Greg Doucette\u2019s crusade against hypocrisy, police violence, and big government - 9th Street Journal<\/title>\n \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