Bulk of fees paid to outside attorneys in excessive-force cases

By April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News
April 12, 2004

Denver has spent more than $6.5 million since 1995 on outside law firms to defend excessive-force cases against police - often resulting in costly settlements.

That figure raised eyebrows when reported to the City Council earlier this month.

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Most of the legal fees were for defending high-profile police shootings and physical altercations between 1995 and 2003.

"The expenses surround high-profile cases, and the ones where you have attorneys involved practically the day after the incident," Deputy Denver City Attorney Michelle Lucero said. "The outside-case expenditures are tied to the attorneys involved. A 17th Street law firm is going to charge more than a solo practitioner."

Some of the notable cases the city has paid tens of thousands of dollars to law firms to help defend:

• A lawsuit filed by William Abeyta's family in 1995. Police shot and killed Abeyta, who was suspected of stealing a Jeep, after a chase. The city paid about $265,000 to settle the case.

• A lawsuit filed by Jeffery Truax's family in 1996. Police shot and killed Truax as he and a friend were leaving the scene of a bar fight in his car. The city settled case for $250,000.

• A $3 million lawsuit brought by Brant Corder of Aurora in 1996. Corder claimed that he was severely burned when six Denver police officers and sheriff's deputies held him down on a hot manhole cover outside Larimer Square's Cadillac Ranch. The city recently agreed to pay $45,000 to settle the case. The City Council is expected to approve the settlement Monday.

• A lawsuit filed by DeShawn Hollis in 2001. Police shot and paralyzed Hollis, then-12, as he bolted out of the back door of a home that he allegedly had broken into. Denver settled the case for a record $1.2 million, but police insisted that the officer who shot the boy violated no departmental policies.

The amount paid to outside firms to defend excessive-force cases doesn't necessarily indicate an increase in such complaints, Lucero said.

But some City Council members called the millions spent in legal fees to defend those lawsuits "alarming."

"They're telling us the police department doesn't have a problem, yet we're spending over $600,000 a year in legal fees dealing with excessive-force cases," Councilman Michael Hancock said. "There needs to be greater attention to how officers are being held accountable."

The city faces the specter of paying legal fees to defend a lawsuit over last July's shooting of 15-year-old Paul Childs. Denver police officer James Turney shot and killed the mentally disabled teenager in his home as he was wielding a knife. The Childs family has filed a letter of intent to sue the city, seeking $5 million in damages.

Earlier this year, Denver City Attorney Cole Finegan launched a reorganization of the city attorney's office, in part to reduce the logjam of excessive-force cases.

A key element of the plan is to increase the number of trial attorneys in the courtroom and cut the number of outside attorneys hired to handle such cases, Lucero said.

Denver spent about $765,000 in 2003 to defend excessive-force cases. The city attorney's office seeks to reduce that amount to $400,000 this year by bringing more of the work in-house.

The city often hires outside firms to defend cases against the police department to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, particularly when the city, the mayor and the police chief are named in the same lawsuit, Lucero said.

Just in the past 3 ½ years, Denver has spent more than $14 million to settle pending or threatened lawsuits, either after losing in court or before the case went before a jury. Most of the payouts came in cases involving the police department's use of force and police accidents.

In 2003, Denver police shot and killed eight people, prompting calls for independent investigations into police shootings.

"That's why I sent a letter to the U.S. Justice Department, asking them to look into the problem," said City Council President Elbra Wedgeworth, who spearheaded a police-reform resolution last fall. "The shootings are getting high."

In December, Mayor John Hickenlooper rolled out what he called the most comprehensive police reforms in the city's history, arming officers with more training and subjecting them to increased citizen oversight.

"With everything that we're doing, assigning an attorney to advise the police department . . . and what the task force is doing, the hope is . . . to get excessive-force cases decreased," Lucero said.

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