Daryl Washington often looks at himself in the mirror and thinks, “How did I get here?”
By “here,” the Dallas-based lawyer means leading a practice that is about 90 percent devoted to representing victims of police brutality in federal civil rights lawsuits.
Washington began his legal career working in mergers and acquisitions for Jackson Walker. A former wide receiver for the Grambling State University football team, Washington also represented professional athletes and college coaches, where he got a taste of litigation. But he wanted to be a fulltime trial lawyer.
He also felt something else was missing. Around that time, he was president of JL Turner Legal Association and grew involved in community activities. But it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that he faced a significant turning point in his career.
Washington received a phone call from a New Orleans woman who had come to Dallas, displaced by the hurricane. The city of Dallas provided housing vouchers to victims of Hurricane Katrina, but the woman had missed a renewal deadline and faced losing her voucher. Washington wanted to help but declined because her problem didn’t fall into his practice area.
Less than a half-hour later, the woman showed up at Washington’s office with her kids in tow. Washington felt compelled to help, and they got the decision reversed. The woman gifted him a gallon of milk and a picture frame, he said, because it was all she had to give.
“That was a defining moment of my whole career,” Washington said last month in an interview with The Texas Lawbook.
Months later, Washington took on his first civil rights case representing the family of a man killed by police in the Dallas suburb of Irving. The officers’ deposition testimony didn’t match with the statements previously given to the police department’s internal affairs division. The case ended in a settlement.
Now, just about 10 percent of Washington’s practice is devoted to business, commercial litigation, products liability and personal injury.
“I love doing business negotiations. I love commercial litigation. I love sports law. But [civil rights practice] is something I truly believe God has called on me to do,” Washington said. “How long He’s going to have me doing it, I don’t know. But until that time comes when I’m not doing it anymore, I’m going to give 150 percent, because I think victims of police brutality deserve to have quality legal representation.”
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s keeping you busy right now?
I have a number of civil rights cases that have been keeping me extremely busy. Just recently, we finished the civil trial in connection with the wrongful death of Botham Jean [by a Dallas police officer in 2018]. That was something that took years and a lot of fighting to get to. I have a case in Fort Worth dealing with Anthony Johnson. He was an inmate at the Tarrant County Jail. He was killed by jailers. So that has been an extremely difficult case to deal with. I’m getting ready for a trial in Marshall, Texas. A veteran was killed by a sheriff deputy doing a wellness check.
What would you point to as some of the biggest trials that you’ve handled?
Honestly, I look at all of them as being big, no matter how small they are or how big they are. I pride myself in giving them all the same attention.
You’ve represented the family of Botham Jean, who of course was the young man killed in 2018 by then-Dallas police officer Amber Guyger. This year, you secured a more than $98 million civil verdict. What has it meant to you personally and professionally to represent this family?
It was an honor. I think Botham’s case really let people know that this police brutality issue that we were dealing with was not just limited to a certain part of Dallas. It wasn’t limited to your income or whether you had been previously convicted of a crime. We saw that Botham was the best of the best. This was a guy that had so much to offer Dallas as well as this world. When you talk to people from PricewaterhouseCoopers (where Jean worked), it really hurts you that I never even got a chance to meet this guy. Because hearing all these wonderful things about him just makes you really, really sad.
But I think the significance of this case was, and I think the message that the jury sent out was, we ought to be able to be free in our home. If they did not send out that message, then who would be next? We’ve had so many cases throughout this country where police have gone into somebody’s home — these individuals weren’t committing a crime — and they ended up dead. So that was the message that we needed the jury to send out. Obviously, we would prefer that Botham were here today, but the next best thing to do was to show that Botham’s life meant something, and I think that was very beneficial for the family to finally be able to put some closure to that legal process.
What news, developments or trends in law are you particularly keeping an eye on at the moment?
Obviously, we know there are going to be some changes come January. That’s very concerning right now, because incoming President Trump has made it known that he’s going to try to give full immunity to police officers. That’s really worrisome. We’re seeing his picks for the Department of Justice. It’s concerning. We have our eyes wide open, wondering what’s going to happen with civil rights. Nobody really knows right now. It’s a scary time.
What is a trial that you weren’t involved in that you wish you had been involved in and why?
Any case involving civil rights. I love trying cases, and there is nothing more fulfilling than being able to look at a family and bring the very first smile to their face that they’ve had in years. I’ve negotiated millions and millions of dollars in contracts. I’ve helped close deals. You go out, you celebrate, you pop the champagne. But it doesn’t even come close to the satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping somebody or helping the community.
Do you have any pre-trial rituals?
I have a lot of them. I love music. As a former football player, one of the things that we used to do before a game to get pumped up is we would listen to music, and I do that now. I listened to Caribbean music [before the trial against Guyger], only because I wanted to get into the feel of Botham [who was from Saint Lucia].
In closing arguments, I said, “I can imagine Botham’s last five minutes of life, sitting down, eating ice cream and watching the Philadelphia Eagles play a football game. Botham, all of a sudden, hears his door open, and he looks up to see who it is, and he sees Amber Guyger in the police uniform. And for that split moment, he feels a sigh of relief, because it’s a police officer. And within a second, that same police officer shoots Botham twice. And you can imagine that as Botham is on that ground taking this very last breath, wondering, “Why did she just shoot me?” he hears her on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, worrying about her job. I can imagine that Botham was thinking, “Help me.”
I had to really get into Botham. I think the jury needed to understand what Botham was going through. So sometimes, I have to become the person who I’m representing.
What is your favorite task to handle at trial and why? What is your least favorite?
Getting ready to direct or cross a witness or opening statements or preparing for closing are some of my favorite tasks. I don’t have a least favorite task, but I’ll tell you my least favorite part of a trial is waiting for that verdict. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and it has not gotten easier.
How do you celebrate after a trial win?
I really don’t, honestly. Believe me, I’m happy. I’m really happy when jurors come my way, because I know there were cases that didn’t go my way, that should have gone my way, and when the case doesn’t go my way, I always say it’s not because of anything I did. I don’t feel like I ever lose because I always put the evidence out.
I have a 30-minute rule that I implement for good and bad things. If something bad happens, I have 30 minutes to be as negative as I want. I have 30 minutes to pout, 30 minutes to cry, 30 minutes to feel sorry for myself. And after those 30 minutes are up, it’s time to move on. It’s the same when something good happens. I have 30 minutes to celebrate. I might take 45 minutes when I win, but after that I have to move on to the next one, because there’s just so much more that I have to do.
But here’s the thing that I do say, and I try to say it in every press conference after a trial: A victory for one is a victory for all, because I know there are so many families who have not had that opportunity to get into that courtroom to let a jury hear what happened to their loved one. So when I’m able to get into that courtroom and have a trial, I look at it as a victory for everybody who has dealt with police brutality. When you get these cases to trial, that is your time to make a difference. Because I can assure you, there is a police officer who may have considered doing something wrong that is watching their fellow officer go through that and saying, “I am not going to put myself in this situation.” And to me, that’s the victory of it all, even if the jury doesn’t come back your way.
To get to trial on a Section 1983 police brutality case is a victory. Very, very, very, very few cases ever get to trial. Most of them get dismissed. So I pride myself on being able to get there. So when I say, “Your Honor, may it please the Court” and I give my opening statement, I feel like I’ve already won, because I have done what I told these clients I was going to do; I was going to fight to the very end, and we were going to find out what happened to their child.
If you weren’t a lawyer, what career do you think you would have chosen instead?
I’d have been playing football. I love homes. I think I was a builder in my previous life. I love watching the homebuilding shows. My mother loved doing that. I’ll just ride around Dallas when I have some time looking at houses. It’s just a stress reliever for me. I would love to be a coach. I could easily see myself being a high school or college basketball coach. I previously coached a women’s semi-pro league. They all played either professional basketball or college basketball.
What am I not asking that you’d like to share with our readers?
We do what we do because we care. We do it to make a difference. The majority of police officers that I’ve come in contact with are good people. It’s the bad ones that make it bad for the good officers. So when we’re taking these cases, it’s not an indictment against the whole police department or every officer on the street. It’s just a person that has done something that was wrong. We all believe in the Constitution, and when I take these cases, I’m simply enforcing the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment. That’s how I want people to view it.