Profiles Q and A:
Satana Deberry ’94 Durham DA discusses plan for criminal justice reform
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atana Deberry ’94 became Durham County’s district attorney on Jan. 1, her latest step in a diverse career that has included criminal defense practice, government service, community economic development, nonprofit management, and fair housing advocacy. Deberry, who secured the post last May in the Democratic primary, ran on a platform promising sweeping reform of criminal justice in Durham. A native of Hamlet, N.C., Deberry practiced criminal defense in nearby Rockingham early in her career. She said she was persuaded to run for election by community activists who told her that efforts at making the justice system in Durham more fair and efficient “always were stopped at the DA’s office.” She has been focused full-time since July on staffing and strategic planning, recruiting deputies with a wide range of legal experience, including public defense, to lead teams with specific areas of focus, and finding out how similar reform efforts are being implemented in such cities as Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Chicago, Seattle, and Corpus Christi, Texas. Deberry spoke with Duke Law Magazine in November about her plans. The interview has been edited for length. Duke Law Magazine: What are you bringing to this new post from your time as a criminal defense attorney in Rockingham, N.C.? Satana Deberry: When I returned home [after attending Princeton and Duke Law and working in the Legal Honors Program of the U.S. Department of the Interior] I was practicing with people I knew, so they were more than just clients for me. And I saw how easily you can become involved in the criminal justice system when you’re poor and black. It may be for no other reason than your community is over-policed or there’s a lack of economic opportunity for you in that community, so you turn to the things that bring you to the attention of the police. I was able to “unhook” the behavior, or what we were punishing, from the people. I never thought of my clients as criminals. I also learned that prosecutors often cheat and lie. I left criminal law in 2000 partly because I felt like I had no power. By the time my clients got to me, the die had been cast, essentially — my role was to just keep them from going over into the abyss this time, with full knowledge that we’d be back to the edge of the abyss again. That takes a toll emotionally. DLM: You have pointed out that Durham has a long history of black political power and are, in fact, replacing a black district attorney who spent his career as a prosecutor. What is the key to changing what you see as persistent racial bias in the administration of criminal justice in Durham?
SD: It’s about culture. It is difficult to bring about change when you are raised in a culture, and there are also certain ways that career prosecutors are raised. When you’re in law enforcement, whether as a prosecutor or a cop on the street, when people see you, it is most likely the worst day of their lives. If every day you’re seeing people on the worst day of their lives, it can affect the way you view people. And a 20-year career of viewing people like that might not incline you towards change. You might not think the system is broken and in need of wholesale change, just tinkering around the edges. You are more likely to think you are overworked with cases and you’d like more resources. You likely don’t think that you control the number of cases that come to you. But the DA controls the calendar. The idea behind my campaign was that we understand the impact on communities of punitive criminal justice policies and understand the breadth and power and discretion of the DA’s office. In North Carolina, the district attorney has almost 100 percent discretion
Duke Law Magazine • Spring 2019
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