Laura Coates on Her New Book “Just Pursuit”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, from America’s prison system to the courtroom, Laura Coates used to enforce civil rights of the Justice Department before becoming a prosecutor as assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. In her new book, “Just Pursuit,” she reveals the reality of working as a black woman within a legal system widely considered racist. She joins Michel Martin to explore how the pursuit of justice can create injustice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Laura Coates, thank you so much for talking with us.

LAURA COATES, AUTHOR, “JUST PURSUIT: A BLACK PROSECUTOR’S FRIGHT FOR FAIRNESS”: I’m so glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I’m so eager to have a conversation with you in particular, thank you.

MARTIN: Thanks for that. People are familiar with your kind of trenchant legal analysis and your ability to hold your own in all kinds of situations. So, and, you know, your first actual assignment in the government, your first federal assignment was actually with the civil rights division. I mean, it sounds like a dream job but it turns out that it wasn’t. Why wasn’t it?

COATES: Well, it was a dream to be able to continue the work of the voting rights act and try to enforce it around the nation. But as you can imagine, as you just see now in real-time, there’s a lot of people who are putting pressure and their thumbs on the scale to try to ensure that we claw back voting rights. And I was there at a time when we had the benefit of Section 5, Michel, we had the preclearance authorization, we had Section 2 enforced. You had on both ends at the proactive and a reactive level to be able to address discriminatory practices. And it was hard even then, even before the Supreme Court gutted it, before rendered it anemic, the voting rights act. And so, you knew that there were still challenges ahead. And frankly, the bureaucracy that comes into play, the decisions to ensure that we do not put off the vibe that we are somehow a political arm or a partisan entity, there is a lot of contemplative practices, a lot of — considering the politics to everything, and it really could — in many ways, it constrained the ability to pursue with the type of vigor we needed to.

MARTIN: So, you wanted to have more trial experience.

COATES: I did.

MARTIN: You wanted — so, you transferred to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington to become an assistant U.S. attorney, and AUSA. Just as briefly as you can, why was that important to you?

COATES: It was important for me to have a more tangible role in justice, to actually see it in the day-to-day, not just to have the policy positions but actually seeing it in real practice and affecting in a very personal individual way.

MARTIN: Your book comes with a very provocative opening salvo, frankly. Which as you just say it, that, you know, sometimes, you know, pursuing justice causes injustice. And this was a shock to you. You thought your public service was going to be kind what you thought was a straightforward act of patriotism, is how you put it. One of your supervisors in the Civil Right Division actually tried to warned you, as you recount it, you know, he said, you know what, it’s just going to be misery every day. When you heard that, what did you think?

COATES: I thought that he was misinformed, frankly, or perhaps that he was somebody who didn’t understand the true role of what a prosecutor could be. And I was coming from a place where it was a given in the Civil Rights Division. People knew whose side you were on. You know, we — they knew where your moral compass was pointing and the work that you were doing. And I assume that under the same umbrella of justice, the Justice Department, that would be understood and the idea of being a forgone conclusion will continue. But little did I know, frankly, and I don’t think I’m a naive person, perhaps I was — myself was misinformed and not realizing the idea of what it took to transform from a civil rights attorney to a criminal prosecutor and that even though you’re under that same umbrella, the questions of allegiance come up. Even though your victims are black and brown, overwhelmingly, the idea that you are prosecuting black and brown people who are disproportionately impacted by the system really pulls you in different directions and forms this battle of allegiance that I grappled with and write about that in the book.

MARTIN: So, that never occurred to you before you took that job?

COATES: It did occur to me that people might challenge the notion of what side are you on and the idea of, hey, how can you be civil rights oriented and still believe that you can be a federal prosecutor? But I think it challenges this fallacy that black and brown people are only supposed to perform one role within the justice system, as defendants. And the idea of simply being in reaction as a defense counsel, for example, who after the decision has been made to arrest, after charging documents have been filed, grand juries have been in panel, the weight of the federal government against the individual defendant, you know that it is not a — at that point, a fair fight. The resources are overwhelming and few defense counsels are able to achieve an acquittal for their clients. And so, I noted the idea that the defense counsel being in a very reactive position, after all was said and done, having to guard against and defend retroactively. I saw a prosecutor’s role, frankly, as being an extension of a gatekeeper and trying to ensure that the charging decisions were accurate, the discretion was wielded appropriately and the power was not coveted in the maniacal way but instead in a way that actually pursued justice. And I think there was always a tension of trying to, on the one hand, explain that and also advocate on behalf of people who have every right to have champions, who have every right to have somebody correct what they have done and hold people accountable.

MARTIN: You tell some very disturbing stories. But what struck you the most is kind of the jokiness about people making mistakes that had massive impacts on people’s lives, was it the kind of — just kind of callousness that people seem to develop? Was it the — what is it that struck you the most?

COATES: You know, all of what you described struck me, but it was the quest for camaraderie at the expense of civil liberties and constitutional rights. It was the idea of the us versus them on full display. Because when you stand up and you say, you announce your name, you know, Laura Coates on behalf of the people of the United States, there is, in my mind, this baked in indication that you understand that the people also include the person, that is the defendant. That their rights are also at stake and that there is an extension of a benefit of the doubt that’s given to you as a prosecutor, given to police officers. You know, how many times have you heard someone say, well, you know what, everyone’s guilty. UI mean, innocent until presumed — innocent until proven guilty. Excuse me. Presumed innocent. But then, you got this idea, well, the government wouldn’t have charged them if they didn’t know something. We have this sort of moments when we extend the benefit of the doubt. And what was most shocking to me was the benefit of the doubt was taken lightly, that it was not something that was universal. And I had great colleagues and, in many regards, some I do not respect, many others that I do, who thought about that benefit of the doubt and wielded it as a weapon, as opposed to thinking about it as a way to preserve the credibility of the Department of Justice and to help others. And I think that was probably the most shocking.

MARTIN: Well, give an example. There’s this one instance you talk about where the prosecutor sets up this — the snitch bust. Tell me about the snitch bust. So, talk a little bit about that incident, like what happened there? Like why did he do that?

COATES: So, I read about it in this chapter called, you want to see something funny, and that was really how it (INAUDIBLE) to me as a moment of escapism. Hey, come with me, leave your desk for a second, I got something to show you. Somebody who wanted to take me under their wing, a white male colleague who thought that for some reason I sought to emulate his particular brand of prosecution and power. And the want to see something funny ended up being in the basement of our own offices, a young black male defendant who was awaiting his own trial is being held, but he was chained to a chair. And I immediately understood that this somehow was the funny part for this particular colleague. And that he was going to use his different recollections, episodes of the wire, however he thought people spoke in these circumstances, he would drop certain syllables, he would try to emulate what believed people in this particular community spoke like. He was — he was trying to force this person to become an informant, and the way he chose to do so was to bring him in under a separate bus and get people who are leaving the jail, who were held, some go to the courthouse for the hearings, their sentencings, their trials, and that’s one bus going into courthouse. And this other bus, you may be on different and the assumption is if you’re on the other bus, that you’re headed to the U.S. attorney’s office to somehow be a cooperator or to meet with someone in some respect. And so, this idea, you could imagine in a no snitch world that we’re in, we talk about snitching in terms of rats and people who are cooperators, who are in danger and why we have to put them in certain (INAUDIBLE) location, the idea of that stigma of what that would look like and how it would impact. And this particular prosecutor saw this opportunity, frankly, to exploit that perception and to use it to his advantage. And I had never seen this practice before. I was relatively new to trials at this point. I had not seen what this looked like in practice or how one came to be an informant. I assumed, in some respect, that when somebody was a cooperator or informant, that it was used through council in a way that protected them and they actually wanted to come forward in some form or fashion, albeit reluctantly, but the way it was done and how it was used was a moment that was so eye-opening and jarring and made me realize that even if I did not intend to be, my very presence was complicit. And that I needed to take that with me going forward and to really think about what role I was truly playing. And the us versus them, how did I become the us in a way that was exploitative?

MARTIN: Yes. You talk about that a lot, how it’s almost — it almost seemed tribal. Like the idea was, you know, you are part of this tribe now. So, this is how you’re supposed to think. Like, one of your colleagues ridiculed you for shaking someone’s hand, for example, and introducing yourself. You describe a scene where a black female defense attorney who you were — happened to be eating lunch in the same space one day, as you describe it said, said that — called the — described your colleagues thusly, she said that these are the white boys who got picked last for gym class and now, get to play God.

COATES: Right. And that was the —

MARTIN: I mean, it’s harsh, but do you think there’s some truth to that?

COATES: I think there is some truth in the idea that there are some prosecutors who want to pursue justice and are doing it altruistically and with the right intentions. I think there are other prosecutors who see power as an opportunity. And they exploit and covet it in ways others do not. And I think that when I was having this conversation right about this chapter about a right seat at the table, explores notion of why I think it’s important to be on both sides of the courtroom, why it’s important to have every role within the courtroom, in the legal system that hopes will become a justice system in America. And I had this conversation where those ideas were challenged and why two of us were having this sort of moment of butting heads in terms of why we each thought our seat at the table was the right one to have, why it was you needed to have somebody who was a defense council with the perspectives who refused to shed who she was on that side. But you also needed somebody who also refused to shed and did not have the luxury of leaving behind different facets of my identity that made me me, being a black woman, being a mother, being a wife, being a human being, having a lived experience of a black woman in America, why that was equally important, if not more, to have on that side. But you see, these discussions and conversations about sort of the preconceived notions and misgivings of where we each fell is also a part of our conversation in the national realm. We have it with police officers, the idea of how can you be a police officer knowing that the so-called bad apple syndromes actually occur? How can you be on that side? How can you be a judge? How can you be a warden? How can you be a parole officer? How can you be — and you can fill in the blank there, but there is an importance of having this fallacy that we can only perform one role in the justice system as defendant, completely disrupted. But there are consequences because when you are within the system, you will see just how impactful race and bias truly is on the day-to-day operations of the justice system.

MARTIN: You know, it seems like the way criminal justice is spoken about in this country, there’s only two choices, right? It seems like these poor kids who have been dealt a bad hand or these are super predators to kind of drag up — you know, a term from the early ’80s, these are super predators who have to be controlled and locked away as long as possible, and those seem to be like our only two choices. And I’m just like, what is a better way to talk about that? What is a better way to approach this? I think we’ve seen the current version of this is defund the police, society’s going to hell, you know. What’s a better way to talk about these issues?

COATES: Well, it’s never binary. And I think we have to stop talking about it in either/or. Stop talking about justice as defined either as a destination or simply a verdict. One of the things that turned General Keith Ellison from my home state of Minnesota spoke about after the Derek Chauvin verdict was very clear, to talk about, this is not a transformative moment necessarily, it’s not the catalyst that we can never go backwards. It was one trial. It was one verdict. And while it was extraordinarily important for it to happen and the right decision, it’s one case among thousands of cases, probably this year alone. And we have to think about it of justice of being more than just a verdict being rendered or that somebody has been exonerated after being decades — spending decades in prison or that the person is somebody who is a detriment to society. What you speak about is the range of humanity. What you speak about just now, Michel, is the scope of humanity and idea of thinking about the fact that these are human beings in a system who, unfortunately, never met me until they had made the worst choice or decision of their lives. If you met me in my professional capacity as a prosecutor, you were immediately, in terms of how you were charged, thought of by the powers that be and the jury and the courtroom as the culmination of just that one decision, not your entire life. And I’m not a therapist. I don’t pretend to be somebody who is a social worker or somebody whose job it was to be involved in the rehabilitation of somebody, but I do know that if we infuse humanity and think about it as more than the either/or, think about the nuance, it’s not just the right thing to do, frankly, Michel, it is a strategic advantage. And I’ll tell you why. You’re talking about prosecuting a case or you’re a defense counsel. Guess who’s on your jury? Whole human beings. The whole point of voir dire is to find the right fact finders who will be sympathetic to your particular case. If you’re the defense or the prosecution. You try to curate the peer group that’s going to decide this person’s fate because you realize that the humanity and the human aspect is going to be very important to the decision-makers in this case. And so, why on earth, as a strategic matter, let alone what’s the right thing to do, as a strategic matter, why would you pretend that race and gender and bias does not factor into our justice system if it is part of our void dire system, it’s part of what we’re actually thinking about as prosecutors, as defense attorneys, as judges. And I think the more we just realize and admit, frankly, and at times, confess, confess that actually has a role, we’ll be better off.

MARTIN: Before we let you know, you know what, you know I have to ask you about “Jeopardy!,” right?

COATES: Do you mean double jeopardy?

MARTIN: The former — the late beloved host of “Jeopardy!” actually name checked you as someone that he wanted to be considered to carry on his legacy. First of all, that had to have been kind of awesome, since you are a fan of the show. But I’m just wondering why they never gave you a shot. I mean, the whole thought that you were pretty good.

COATES: I was thrilled, and I really will always be so honored that Alex Trebek even mentioned my name. I mean, I grew up watching him. We all watched him. We — I was a fan of the show and a personal fan of his. And that he named me was really just such a moment of — an unexpected moment of pride and I will always remember how kind he was about it. And I was so sad to see his passing. My own grandmother died of pancreatic cancer and the fact it claimed yet another life is always going to be in my mind and my heart. When they were looking for guest hosts, I did raise my hand. I asked for the opportunity. I wanted to at least have the opportunity to audition and be a guest host. I wasn’t asking for the guarantee. I was asking for the opportunity, and they said no. And they said no in no uncertain terms. And they —

MARTIN: Best of what?

COATES: It was — they didn’t believe that his recommendation or statement was persuasive enough to provide that opportunity. So, you know, it just reminds you, Michel, I’m sure you’ve had in your own life, that you’ve got to wear your own jersey and continue to be your own champion. And I know that my calling will — is not a gameshow perhaps, but you know what it is, it’s asking the right questions, it’s answering the questions and it’s keeping my community out of jeopardy.

MARTIN: All right. Laura Coates, thank you so much for talking with us.

COATES: Thank you. I appreciate it, Michel.