Ferguson could be in for long fight vs. Justice
Few believe community can overcome troubles in own judicial system
“If they ( Ferguson) go to court, they will lose. There is one way Ferguson doesn’t end up paying, and that is if the town goes out of business.” University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris
The first time a Justice Department lawsuit to reform a local police department was challenged, the odds seemed stacked against Columbus, Ohio.
Federal authorities alleged that police officers had engaged in false arrests and excessive force. The actions, officials said at the time of the 1999 lawsuit, were effectively sanctioned because detailed incident reports were forwarded to superiors who took no action.
Yet after municipal leaders argued in 2002 that they had begun implementing improvements on their own, Justice took the unusual step of dropping the case in favor of an out- of- court resolution.
Fourteen years later, Ferguson has embarked on a similar course, but few believe that the fraught Missouri town has the capacity to overcome what federal authorities contend is decades of systemic discrimination that has enveloped the community’s criminal justice system. The Justice Department sued the city Wednesday after municipal leaders sought to revise a long- negotiated settlement, citing prohibitive costs of executing such a deal.
“If they ( Ferguson) go to court, they will lose,” University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris said. “There is one way Ferguson doesn’t end up paying, and that is if the town goes out of business.’’
If the professor’s assessment sounds harsh, many analysts, including some policing advocates, agree. They believe that the millions of dollars a legal challenge is likely to cost would be better spent on reforming the operations of the troubled police agency, which was thrust into the national spotlight 18 months ago after a white officer shot an unarmed 18- year- old black youth.
The officer was not charged, but the incident and the sustained civil unrest that followed prompted a broad Justice Department examination of the city’s criminal justice system. That examination, published nearly a year ago, offered a searing indictment of policing operations, asserting that African Americans were disproportionately subjected to arrests and stops. Investigators said the city also sought to use policing operations to boost revenues in fines and fees, often at the expense of poor and AfricanA-merican residents who had little means to contest such sanctions.
“The findings seem to be pretty clear cut,” said Chuck-Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement think tank. “This is a department with very serious problems. A lawsuit only seems to prolong a contentious relationship with the Department of Justice and with the community.”
Ferguson officials were unmoved, saying they remain eager to resume negotiations after the City Council voted late Tuesday to revise a tentative agreement reached with Justice last month. The amendments, in part, removed language that local leaders said mandated big raises for police officers to draw a more qualified and diverse candidate pool.
Local leaders also sought to free the city from its obligations under the agreement should Ferguson shutter the police department and enlist another agency to provide public safety services.
Harris said that by inviting the suit, Ferguson may be gambling that within a year a new president may be more sympathetic to the city’s plight.
“The city stands by to restart negotiations to approve ( an agreement) with the amendments that have the support of an overwhelming majority of the public,” Ferguson spokesman Jeff Small said. He added that there was “no consideration” of a political calculus to wait out the current administration. “It didn’t get that far,” he said. Robert Driscoll, a former chief of staff in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division who worked on the Columbus case during the Bush administration, said Ferguson’s decision — while rare — may not be “a terrible idea.”
By moving quickly to file a lawsuit, Driscoll said, Justice officials may have lost some leverage to cajole a settlement and begin the process of reform.
“They effectively killed their hostage,” Driscoll said.
While formidable, Driscoll also said Justice’s legal action is not guaranteed to succeed. Last year, a North Carolina federal judge ruled that the government “failed to demonstrate” that the Alamance County, N. C., Sheriff’s Department engaged in discriminatory policing of Hispanics.
James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, said it’s generally in the “best interests” of troubled departments to seek an agreement.
“Justice can keep this going in court for years,” Pasco said. “You would have to be in serious denial to say that this course Ferguson is taking is the result of good advice.”