South Carolina

Amber Fulmer: Welcome, y’all, to the Direct Examination Podcast. My name is Amber Fulmer.

Dayne Phillips: I’m Dayne Phillips.

Joseph Bias: And I’m Joseph Bias. We’re really happy that you all are tuning in for our second episode of our second season. We got the crew here today. We have our newest team member here with us, Dennison Larue. Dennison’s a law student at the law school. Dennison, introduce yourself, tell everyone who you are, and welcome!

Dennison Larue: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, like Joseph said, I’m Dennison. I’m a New Orleans native, moved to Charleston for high school, then went to Clemson. Go Tigers!

Dayne Phillips: Go Tigers!

Amber Fulmer: Boo!

Joseph Bias: We’re gonna have to cut this podcast short!

Dennison Larue: And then went straight to law school at USC, so I’m a 2L now. And I started working with the podcast last fall…

Dayne Phillips: Fired just a second ago!

Dennison Larue: And so yeah, I’m helping out contacting advertisers, social media, and I’m excited for Season 2.

Joseph Bias: Fantastic. Now, Dennison—the only reason we let him on this week is because we’re recording it on Mardi Gras week. Dennison, you can’t see him, he’s wearing a bunch of beads, we don’t know how he got them, but we’re still very happy to have you.

Thank you everyone for listening to our first episode, we did really, really big numbers, we’re very happy with it. Remember, email us your questions at directexaminationpodcast@gmail.com. If you want to advertise with us, contact us, we’ll have Dennison set it up for you, and even your business can be part of the show here at the Direct Examination Podcast.

Dayne Phillips: Dennison will show up and take your money day or night!

Joseph Bias: That’s right! And maybe he won’t be wearing the face paint that he’s wearing now. Dayne, tell us about our guests for today.

Dayne Phillips: Well, this week’s episode is the Minority Roundtable. Our guests today are April Sampson and Joseph Dickey Jr.

April is the Deputy Solicitor in the Fifth Judicial Circuit and has been a prosecutor since 2011. She spent six years at the Richland County Public Defender’s Office and seven years in private practice with an emphasis on criminal defense work.

Joseph is the managing attorney for the Dickey Law Group. He primarily handles business litigation and education law matters. He’s conversational in Japanese. I find that pretty awesome! He also worked in Japan, which is definitely—if we can throw that in, I know that’s not part of the roundtable today, I just want to hear about your life in Japan, too, prior to attending law school. He’s an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. He’s a prof just like our esteemed co-host, and they teach the same course!

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Professors, sir!

Joseph Bias: Yes, we don’t skimp on our degrees, please don’t skimp on our titles. Thank you!

Dayne Phillips: Section man in the sweater vest. Looks just like a professor.

Joseph Bias: Well, you can’t fail me, so I can call you whatever the hell I want! What are you gonna do, Joseph? It’s gonna be great because we’re gonna tell our class: “Hey guys, both of your professors are on this podcast!” And at some point in this podcast, we’re gonna say something that’s gonna pop up on a pop quiz for them, so it’s gonna be great. So hope you’re listening, class!

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Pop quiz tomorrow!

Amber Fulmer: I like that, I like that.

Joseph Bias: But thanks guys for being here. We actually all share kind of a common background. We actually all worked for the same firm at one point at different times. Did you two ever overlap? Y’all two overlapped, right?

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Yes, I served as Miss Sampson’s clerk way back when.

Joseph Bias: And now that she’s gotten big and, you know, is too fancy for us, so…

April Sampson: Whatever!

Joseph Bias: April and I were the co-coaches of the Black Law Students Association mock trial team at the law school this year, and they had a wonderful, good season, and we’re very proud of them.

April Sampson: Yes, we are.

Joseph Bias: So let’s talk about your background a little bit. April, tell us kind of how you got to being the second-in-command in Richland County Solicitor’s Office, and how was that working your way up kind of as an African American woman? Did you face any issues that made that more challenging maybe than other people?

April Sampson: I started out at the Public Defender’s Office in Richland County, and worked there for altogether six years. I went for two, left and tried private practice, and didn’t really like it so much. Went back to the Public Defender’s Office and eventually was a deputy at the Public Defender’s Office, and decided to try civil.

Being a defense attorney at the Public Defender’s Office is probably the most fun job ever, but also the hardest job. Being a prosecutor is just as hard, it’s just a different side of the same coin. I have the state, and sometimes the state doesn’t agree, meaning the cop doesn’t agree, the victim doesn’t agree, I don’t agree. So there’s just different perspectives. I think that makes your job different, not necessarily one’s harder than the other.

As a female, I will say that’s actually more challenging than just being—that’s the minority part that I think is harder than being a Black attorney, is more the female part. Because people seem to, even though at this point I am second-in-command, they still ask me am I the paralegal when I walk into the courtroom. And so, that doesn’t happen in Richland County really anymore, but if I go out of the circuit, they don’t always expect that I’m a woman that I would be the attorney. I think you just work it. I can’t say that it’s ever stopped me one way or the other, the minority. What I get as the minority a lot is: “How do you feel about prosecuting Black people and putting all of us in jail?”

Joseph Bias: Well, that was going to be my question. Because a lot of the prosecutors aren’t minorities, you’re kind of in an interesting position to where you are a minority representative of a community in this office while taking that position against minorities who may be in front of you. How has that been, how have you been able to balance those two things?

April Sampson: The way that I look at it is I come to the job with a different perspective than say a white counterpart. Having been in my background—I’m originally from Tennessee—I grew up in a middle-class, mostly white neighborhood, but of course I would always have my family to deal with and see how that is. So I look at a case and I come to it differently than say somebody who was brought up differently.

Would you rather have me with what I bring to the table being a Black woman, or would you rather have—not that Dayne is offensive—but someone from his background looking at: was the officer doing it correctly? Was the officer racially profiling?

So am I putting a Black person in jail? Yes, but most of my cases are murders, rapes, armed robberies. Would you like them to be out on the street? I mean, I don’t care what color they are, it’s more to me the crime, and that is how I look at it. So when I get that from family members who don’t want me at the cookout because who knows what they are doing—snitches get stitches, I don’t do that—that’s how I look at it.

Joseph Bias: Well, Joseph, your background is a little bit different. Although you started out clerking for April, then you blossomed your wings…

Dayne Phillips: You like how he started with that? Just started at the base level when you were under her!

Joseph Dickey Jr.: I mean, it’s fine. If it was somebody else, I’d be upset. But this is April!

April Sampson: I can get along with anybody.

Joseph Bias: So you started out as a clerk, and then you kind of went a whole different direction going into education and then private practice. Can you talk about how you got to where you are and if being Black in this job and this profession was ever a hindrance to you?

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Well, interestingly enough, I did start at Duff, White & Turner with April, and then I took my full-time position there doing employment and education. And then after a couple of years there, I started on my own. Doing practice in employment law and defending companies, government, school districts, I get a lot of discrimination cases under Title VII…

Joseph Bias: Can I pause you for one second? Because I need to tell the Joseph Dickey story! So I was coming from the Public Defender’s Office, and I had already met April from doing an internship at the Solicitor’s Office, and I knew that Joseph worked at Duff, White & Turner. This is a story of lifting someone up. And so I was like, you know what, I respect Joseph, I knew him by reputation. I asked him out to breakfast. “Joseph, tell me about Duff, White & Turner.” He said, “You know what, it’s a great place to work, you’ll love the people there, I work there, can’t wait, excited to have you.” So I’m like, great! So I joined them, get my office, signed up, and then like six months later, he leaves to start his own law firm!

April Sampson: She’s trying to say you scared him!

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Well, you know, it was just timing. I treated him to a luxurious breakfast at IHOP and I paid for it, and then he joined, and then it was just the beginning of the greatness that is now civil litigation capstone at USC Law, Professor Joseph Bias!

Joseph Bias: That’s right! So I’m sorry for interrupting you. So you started the Dickey Law Group…

Joseph Dickey Jr.: I started Dickey Law Group, representing individuals and entities, employers, in discrimination cases and employment discrimination. It gets interesting, I guess, going through law as a Black man, young Black man. You get treated differently, I would say. There have been instances where I’ve walked into court, clearly in a suit and briefcase with other lawyers who might be white, and I’m the only one that gets searched, or I’m the only one that’s made to, you know, pull out a bar card or anything.

There are times where people try to, unfortunately, give you false statements about the law just to test you that I ask around, and it doesn’t happen to other lawyers that aren’t Black, especially in the employment field. It’s a complex area of law that’s ever-changing, so you get some interesting treatment. I have a story later that I’ll talk about where I’m representing an African American male in a race discrimination case against his former employer and there were some interesting comments made.

Another side of that is just representing employers in general. You know, I have to defend sometimes an employer, and there’s an executive or some member of the employer that was using racial epithets at a Black man, and there’s no doubt about it, it happened, yet I’m in court having to defend or representing that person. And in this area, geography-wise, the law is not in the employee’s favor for that. It’s a high bar to show that there was racial discrimination. Just recently, within the past seven years or so, one instance of using a racial epithet has been deemed that it can alter your terms of employment at your job. And that hasn’t always been the case, which is unfortunate. So, that’s kind of my perspective.

Dayne Phillips: What do you think has been the turn in the law? What do you think occurred that made the courts take a different direction in that?

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Elections, appointments. I’m not gonna lie. That’s exactly what it was. I mean, elections matter. Who’s in office is going to dictate who’s on that bench. And so it’s important, especially from an equal rights standpoint, employment civil rights standpoint, that you know who you’re voting for, whether Republican or Democrat. Having a decent person in office is important because that’s going to dictate who’s going to get on your federal benches.

Dayne Phillips: Well, one of the things you said that I found interesting, and I certainly could see where it could actually be used as an advantage when somebody underestimates your abilities. I’ve found that that’s always been beneficial to me. Have you found that in your practice area if somebody was underestimating your abilities as a lawyer that that’s given you an advantage in the courtroom as far as your preparation?

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Uh, it can. It can give you an advantage in some instances where you’re way over-prepared or way more prepared than your opposing counsel. But, you know, it’s not going to be that big of an advantage to where it’s going to change the total outcome of your case. It’s more annoying, just simply put. I mean, I’m just going to be honest, it’s annoying, and it shouldn’t happen.

Joseph Bias: It’s funny, I remember when I was at the Public Defender’s Office, I had already met April from doing an internship at the Solicitor’s Office, and she’s just the nicest person! Like she’s so sweet, she’s so accommodating. But then when I saw her in court, it’s like: “Oh, she’s a beast!” It’s two different people! You put on that superhero cape, you’re going to work! You’re trying to keep the bad guys in jail, because Dayne’s trying to get them out, you know what I mean?

Dayne Phillips: Why are you locking up all these innocent people?

Joseph Bias: Joseph mentioned something about the judges and judiciary, and April, I wanted to get kind of your comment on that. We mostly practice in—well, you exclusively practice in Richland County and Kershaw…

April Sampson: And Kershaw.

Joseph Bias: Where I’d like to say the judiciary is fairly diverse, but that’s not necessarily the case around the state. Talk to me about kind of how as somebody who’s in court frequently in front of these judges, talk to me kind of how that matters, how that plays up, why do we even need a diverse judiciary?

April Sampson: I mean, I guess that’s the same as why you would need diverse prosecutors, diverse defense attorneys, because you bring a different perspective. When I’m looking at cases and even when judges are looking at cases, it helps if you understand where the defendant and/or the victim may have been coming from. And so when I have if I have a battered woman, or even just a regular DV that’s not necessarily a cycle, I may look at that differently because I am a woman.

And so having a bench that is diverse as well, looking at: how am I going to sentence that person who may have come from a background where they didn’t really—I don’t want to say anybody didn’t have a choice, but it would be harder for them to not be doing drugs, to not be in a gang, to not be doing those things, and understanding that at its basic level. And if you don’t have someone who has that background or has even had friends who might have that background, that’s all foreign to them. So a diverse bench is a necessary thing, and we do have a more diverse bench in Richland County, but having said that, it’s not as diverse as it needs to be in terms of the type of judges we get. They might be the same color, but they don’t come from the same background.

Dayne Phillips: And it’s been proven statistically that they’ve done even on a national scale that when you have a white judge and a minority defendant, when they’ve looked over all the different factors—and they can’t even find anything specific from an unknown bias that’s put in in sentencing disparities—we have the statistics. It’s shown that a minority defendant will receive more time than his white counterpart when the sentencing judge is white himself. We have the data on that.

April Sampson: And it’s not just for sentencing, think about hiring. So there’s statistics on: you tend to hire what’s familiar to you. If you go to our office right now, we’re pretty diverse because my boss has been Black for eight years! He has a new Black one now, but still! They have been Black all their lives. That is true, but they have not always been my boss!

When I was a public defender, Lee Coggiola was my boss, and we were heavily female. And if you noticed, we teased her about it, we were all tall! Lee Coggiola was over six feet tall, so we were joking that she didn’t hire short people, but when you look at who you hire, you hire people that look and sound a whole lot like you. And so think about who the judges’ clerks are—they’re the ones that get clerkships, but they also get the choice positions after that. And so it’s not just in sentencing, it’s in everything you kind of need a diverse bench.

Joseph Bias: When I was looking for what to do after law school and you look at the judges, I had an attorney tell me that really the judges you’ll have a shot with getting a clerkship are the ones who look like you. It’s not exclusive, but the ones that you definitely may have a shot with are the ones who look like you, so make sure you apply to them. So, you know, it’s a stereotype because it’s true.

So Joseph, what about you as far as seeing other minority judges, other minority attorneys, how can we kind of start to develop that, continue to develop those, what things can we do to try and boost the diversity of the bar?

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Well, I think a lot of the things that y’all were talking about earlier apply, but you know, one thing is just having people see minority attorneys in positions. Like us being professors at the law school at our age being minorities, having law students and other students see that, that’s important. Seeing that: “Oh, you can be a law school professor.” Doing things like y’all do, coaching mock trial in high school, saying: “Oh, there is a Black attorney” or “There is a Hispanic attorney” or “There is an Asian attorney.”

So I think giving back and being out in the community helps, so you can see people. Otherwise, you know, in some communities you might only see a day laborer or somebody doing other things that might not be so legal. So, you know, I think just being around, being present, role models, continuing to do that will help. I think that’s the first part, building ground up. Top down trying to do it, that’s a little harder, makes that difficult to do.

Joseph Bias: I don’t know y’all’s background, but I didn’t have any lawyers in my family, I was the only person in my family…

Dayne Phillips: We’re all the same.

Joseph Bias: That’s probably why we’re starting our own podcast, right? So I had an eighth-grade teacher who happened to be my mock trial advisor, and he was the first Black dude outside of a church that I saw wear a suit every day. And I thought that was so cool! At the time, I’m like, he’s teaching me about law and he’s a teacher, like this is something I can do! And it was just from seeing him. So if Mr. John Smith wasn’t in that classroom, I probably wouldn’t be a lawyer, just because I wouldn’t have seen a lawyer until I got to college maybe.

For minority students, my advice would be don’t be afraid to reach out, because we’re invested in the profession. You don’t do things like April does, which is volunteer your nights and weekends to go teach high schoolers or law students mock trial, or what Joseph does, taking a job teaching evenings, you don’t take that job unless you’re invested in young attorneys. I’m the same way. In all seriousness, if you reach out to an attorney and you have questions, especially if you reach out to a minority attorney, they’re going to be invested in you, they want to help. Those are the people who end up getting you the internships, getting you the jobs.

April Sampson: Do you not remember calling me?

Joseph Bias: Oh, I absolutely remember calling you! I called you twice! I called you about working at the Public Defender’s Office and working at Duff, White & Turner. I’ve basically been following April’s career projection. Except now he’s surpassed me because he’s a professor!

Joseph Bias: Well, I mean, come on. I’m a professor of this year, let’s slow down. Our new segment is War Stories. Dayne, tell us about War Stories.

Dayne Phillips: So War Stories—last season we did cross-examination. For this season, we started this segment called War Stories, picking out that one memorable case or one memorable moment in your career that just stands out, or just something an entirely crazy moment that you’d like to share with everybody. We’re going to start with Joseph Dickey.

Joseph Dickey Jr.: Well, for a minority roundtable… There was a race discrimination case that I brought on behalf of an African American man in a county in South Carolina. Some of the allegations were the N-word was being used and thrown at him, but also “you’re a monkey,” “we can’t go in the bathroom after you,” “we can’t touch things after you,” “all y’all are related,” y’all being you N-words. All kinds of stuff. So, we had a recording of all these things being thrown around.

And we got to depositions. And so I started asking about the recordings, I specifically asked about the allegation about “all N-words are related.” And I said: “So-and-so, do you think that me and my client are related?” And the response was, and I do not lie: “Well, I don’t know, I mean y’all might look alike, are y’all related?” On the record! And there was a little pause and I said: “Huh.” And I was just floored that she even said it! And so I advised: “No, we’re not related, he is Black,” and then I asked: “Is there any other reason you might think we’re related?” “Well I don’t know, y’all could be something else, I mean I know he’s Black, but I don’t know.” I said again: “We’re not related.” And she finally let it go. From there, things kind of went normally because she realized what she had done and the lawyer wanted to get out of there. But we had a decent settlement, summary judgment did not occur, and things worked out. But that’s one of I guess probably many, and I thought that was just apropos for a minority roundtable!

Dayne Phillips: She saw green!

Joseph Bias: April, what about you?

April Sampson: I mean, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so there’s lots of funny stories. Probably my favorite is I had a client named Nate, and Nate was your neighborhood drug dealer. Unfortunately, Nate was like 50 years old, so he was very distinctive looking being a drug dealer. Experienced! He also walked with a limp, which matters.

He walked into his neighborhood convenience store where the lady at the counter says: “Nate, how’s it going?” as he walks in. This is all on video, one of the best videos I’ve ever seen. When I went to the jail to interview Nate, Nate says: “I don’t know what happened. When I walked in, she just starts throwing money at me, and you know, I just took it.” And I said: “You just took the money?” He said: “Yeah, yeah, I just took it.” I said: “Why would she throw money at you, why would you just take it? You know that’s stealing.” He goes: “Well, Miss April”—because apparently Miss Sampson is just too much when you’re in jail, they always call me Miss April—he says: “Miss April, an N-word got to do what an N-word got to do, and I’m an N-word.” And I said: “Oh really? So that’s what you want me to tell a jury?” And he said: “Yes, Miss April, because that’s the truth.” So I said: “All right.”

So I get the video and I watch it. Best video ever. He is correct, he does go into the store and get his 40 and put it on the counter, but what he left out was he then pulled out a gun and puts it in her face and says: “This is a stickup.” Minor detail! She then says: “Oh Nate, put that gun up! She knows my name!” He does not put the gun up. Eventually she realizes he is robbing her, she does throw money at him, he says: “No, no, just the paper,” and proceeds to stick the paper down his pants and run out the door, but he’s running with his limp! She calls 911, and on the 911 call they ask her: “What does he look like, best description?” and “Which way is he going?” She goes: “I don’t know, but if you hurry up you can find him, he’s limping down the street!” So when I go and show him that, he eventually goes: “Yes, Miss April, they got me.” Thanks, Nate! Nate is probably out now because that was 15 years ago, but he was one of my favorite clients.

Joseph Bias: Well, thank you so much to April Sampson, Deputy Solicitor in the Fifth Judicial Circuit, and Joseph Dickey of Dickey Law Group. You can follow Joseph @dickeylawgroup. You can take his course next year, Civil Litigation Capstone at the law school. You can follow us @SCLawPod on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, follow Joseph @josephpbias, Dayne @sccrimlawyer, and Amber @redjudicata. For Dennison, Dayne, Amber, our guests, for Brendy, and for me, have a wonderful week, we’ll see you next week! Bye!