How does media attention impact police brutality cases in court?

Whether a case is going to be subject to media attention is always something that we have to take into consideration when we evaluate a case and when we strategize on how to present a case. Sometimes if it’s a case where we believe the public will be on our side, we’ll call a press conference. And I’ve done this in a number of states. If it’s a case where the video is clear or where the actions of the law enforcement officer are very clearly bad, that might be a case where I think it’s better to get in front of it and bring it to the media and show them what’s going on.

There are plenty of other cases where it’s not a good idea to involve the media and where I play defense. If my client is not necessarily the cleanest record or if there’s something that he or she did which is obviously going to be subject to scrutiny, that may be something that I don’t want to bring to the public. Another thing that we have to take into consideration is public pressure doesn’t really change lawsuits in my experience. Occasionally it will, but not nearly as often as people think. People think, whether it’s from watching movies or TV, that if you threaten to file a lawsuit and you threaten to go public with it, the defendant is going to come to the table with their checkbook and just ask you how much it’s going to take to go away. That doesn’t happen. That only happens in Hollywood. The reality is you have to be prepared to go the distance.