Donald A. Brisson

This Ex-Marine Who Lives By The Credo 'Leave No One Behind' Is Making A Name For Himself Defending Unpopular Clients And Handling Some Landmark Cases

How far would you go for a client?

Criminal defense attorney Donald A. Brisson has made what some members of the bar consider the quintessential sacrifice: he went to jail for one of his.

Sure, he handled the first case in New Hampshire where a man convicted of a crime was allowed access to evidence to have a DNA test, and he is becoming one of the better-known defense lawyers in Bristol County due to his boldness in taking on cops.

But to really get to know the New Bedford sole practitioner you have to hear his "lock-up" story.

The tale starts in October 2000 with a client of Brisson's who was being held on a motor vehicle violation. Brisson pled the case out and had his client pay court costs.

Apparently the client had some ties to the U.S. Navy, and at the hearing the prosecutor made it known that the military had sent the New Bedford police a letter asking them to hold the defendant, with no further explanation.

Brisson argued to New Bedford District Court Judge David T. Turcotte that since the letter wasn't a warrant and his client wasn't a fugitive from justice, the state had no right to hold his client.

Though the judge agreed, later on Brisson learned that his client was still being held in the courthouse holding cell. When the attorney went to investigate, he says a police officer threatened to arrest him for interfering.

The defendant was transferred to the New Bedford Police Station and called his lawyer to say that the police were questioning him. Like any good defense attorney, Brisson went to the station and asked to see his client.

But, unbelievably, he says, the police refused saying, "We don't have the facilities for lawyers to meet with their clients here."

When Brisson persisted, a female officer came out and told him to "get in the f--king corner," he says.

That proved too much for the ex-Marine.

"I said, 'Look lady, I ain't standing in no freaking corner for nobody!'" Brisson recounts. "That dog don't hunt!"

He was then placed under arrest for disobeying the order of a police officer.

The good news is that he was handcuffed and chained next to his client, so he was finally able to make the questioning stop.

Then, in a selfless move that he shrugs off as routine, Brisson used his one and only phone call to contact another attorney to make sure his client would be protected if and when the Navy came to get him.

"This wasn't my first trip down the handcuff aisle," he says, hinting at his own adolescent years. "I knew I would be OK."

As it turns out, he was able to represent his other clients later in the afternoon, despite the awkward situation created by his arrest.

"Sitting in the [dock], one client turns to me and says, 'Hey, how are you supposed to represent me, when you're here in the dock with me?'" Brisson recalls. "I said, 'Well, it's a long story, but we'll get through this.'"

So why go through all that hassle for a client charged with a motor vehicle infraction? Brisson says it's because he still applies his old Marine Corps credo to his criminal defense work.

"Nobody gets left behind," he says. "Nobody — no matter what the consequences are. When you agree to represent somebody, nobody gets left behind."

Brisson's won't-take-no-for-an-answer approach began even before his years as a practicing lawyer.

After his five-year stint in the Marines, he finally decided to give college a try, so one August Brisson went over to what is now the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth to enroll.

Although he had not taken the SATs, the application deadline had long since passed and classes were about to begin, Brisson refused to budge from the admissions office until he was enrolled as a student.

"It got pretty ugly, and they almost called the campus police, but I said I wasn't going to leave," Brisson recalls. "After a while, they said OK."

The same thing happened when he later applied to graduate school at Rhode Island College.

"They didn't take me either," he says. "I had to go see them to explain to them why they had made a mistake."

When the graduate school offered to place him on the waiting list, Brisson didn't back down and instead wrote out a check for a deposit. After some more wrangling, the school let him in, and he ultimately earned his master's degree in social work.

The only school that actually accepted him in a "normal" fashion was Southern New England School of Law — and even then, Brisson, says, he was sure they made a mistake.

But his track record since then seems to prove that accepting him at law school was no mistake.

In the nine years since graduating law school, Brisson says he has lost only one Superior Court and one District Court trial.

But some of his most important work falls somewhere in between the win and loss column.

Take, for example, the case where Brisson helped a convicted murderer in New Hampshire get access to DNA evidence.

In 2000, Brisson read a story in the Boston Herald about a man convicted of murdering a woman in 1972, where he had supposedly thrown the body over a bridge and onto the frozen Merrimac River.

The man, Robert Breest, had professed his innocence since day one and was seeking a lawyer to help him use DNA testing to prove his innocence, but no one would take the case.

An intrigued Brisson called the man's wife and obtained copies of the trial transcript, ultimately taking the case pro bono on a pro hac vice motion.

Though he was able to compel three separate DNA tests off of well-kept fingernail samples taken from the deceased victim, unfortunately none of the tests were conclusive. A fourth, more advanced test probably would have come up with the definitive answer, but the client decided to "attack the lab" instead and dismissed Brisson and his New Hampshire attorney.

Although Brisson was disappointed he couldn't see the case through to the end, he says it was significant because it was "the first case in New Hampshire where a man convicted of a crime was allowed access to evidence to have a DNA test."

Brisson took on another unpopular cause after Sept. 11 when he represented a New Bedford High School student accused of plotting a Columbine-like attack on his school.

Describing his client as a good kid who was just trying to fit in but got stuck with the wrong crowd, Brisson says the media jumped all over the case as it was going to be the first trial in the country involving a "school massacre" plot.

Ultimately, however, he was able to get the most serious charges dismissed against his client, who was sent to the Department of Youth Services for having a shotgun shell in his bedroom.

"I really believe it was just a lot of talk," Brisson says of the alleged plot to steal guns from a nearby military base and shoot up the school. "Things got blown out of proportion."

Brisson speaks just as passionately for the work he performed recently for an 8-year old child who was being compelled to testify before a grand jury about the death of his brother who was murdered in April. The child's stepfather and mother were part of the grand jury investigation.

Brisson says he searched high and low — even out of state — for some precedent he could use that would protect his minor client. He tried to take the question up to a single justice of the Appeals Court, but was unsuccessful and the child was forced to testify.

"You would think there would be some sort of protection for a kid that age," he says, sadly. "You would think we wouldn't make children choose between the state and their family."

Brisson finds himself in unusual situations in part because of the clients he represents, but also because of his trial strategy.

In court, he is not afraid to make enemies and he is not easily intimidated.

For example, Brisson recalls a case where he represented an interracial couple that had been charged with resisting arrest, disturbing the peace and, for one of them, assaulting a police officer.

The couple, he says, had gone to a dance held at a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall as part of their work for an organization that helped people with disabilities. But once they got there, a bartender allegedly told them that he didn't serve "their kind."

Words were exchanged and ultimately the police were called and an altercation ensued.

Brisson says he got the case dismissed without prejudice "the first time around," but after someone went public with the couple's apparent intentions to file a civil suit against the New Bedford Police Department, the charges were reinstated.

No stranger to that particular police department, Brisson remembers noticing something fishy when one of the responding officers began to read from a police report on the witness stand that didn't match the one Brisson had in his hand.

The judge was alerted, the jury dismissed and a hearing was held to determine how the police report had been changed. Thinking ahead, Brisson had his investigator take down the police officer's testimony in case he later tried to change his story.

It was a good move; the officer did change his story.

"That was a big moment," Brisson remembers with a smile. "He got caught red-handed."

The jury found the couple not guilty on all the major counts, and they each were fined $25 for disturbing the peace.

But the most dramatic moment — and perhaps the one most representative of Brisson's mettle — may have come during the closing arguments when the New Bedford police "packed the courtroom" with uniformed officers in an apparent effort to intimidate the defense lawyer.

"When I got up to make my closing, the first thing I did was walk through the gate to the back row where the two [involved] officers were sitting," Brisson says. "I pointed to each one and call him a liar [and] said that they were a disgrace and a dishonor to the men and women who honor that badge by doing the right thing. Then I walked back and continued my closing."

Although it undoubtedly added to his already-adversarial relationship with the Police Department, Brisson says it may actually work to his advantage in future cases.

"I wanted to send a message that you're not going to intimidate me. If you did something wrong, I'm going to call you on it," he says. "So I hope when they testify, they'll keep that in mind. I won't sweep things under the rug."

The message Brisson says he wants all of his adversaries to hear is that he is willing to do whatever it takes — within the bounds of the law, of course — in order to defend the Constitution and his clients.

Anything, he says, to ensure that "nobody gets left behind."

Age: 42

Graduated: Southern New England School of Law, 1994

Position: Sole practitioner, New Bedford

What's the most stressful part of being a lawyer? "The time when a jury goes out to deliberate. I still have not learned to deal with that time in a not-so-stressful way."

Was your becoming an attorney motivated — at least in part — by money? "No, because if it were, I wouldn't be doing this kind of work."

How would you change law school (in general) to better prepare lawyers? "Law school should be geared to real-world practice."

What do you think of the younger generation of attorneys? "After [the O.J. Simpson trial] people became really pessimistic, dissatisfied and distrusting of the legal profession. [Also,] after Sept. 11, people became more vengeful. It just makes it more difficult now to be a lawyer."

How do you deal with pain-in-the-neck lawyers? "It all depends on what I need from them. That determines how I react, except under one circumstance — DAs who, as we say in the Marine Corps, 'jump in our trash.' I have one response for them: 'I jump back.'"

What do you think of lawyer jokes? (He keeps a folder of them in his briefcase to use in court when things get "tense.") "I tell them a lot. [But] I don't always agree with them because there are good, honorable people in this profession."

What would you be doing if not practicing law? "What is out there that I would like as much as I'm doing now? I don't think there is anything. My eighth grade yearbook asked, 'What do you want to be when you grow up? I said 'lawyer.'"

What kind of reputation would you like to have in the legal community? "Somebody who fought for his clients, somebody who cared for the people he represented."

Who are your role models? "Gerry Spence, Roy Black and William Kunstler."

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? "I know who holds the future, but I don't know what the future holds."

What advice do you have for young lawyer wannabees? "Find someone who's done it — whatever you want to do — and ask them to mentor you."