Meet Spencer Merriweather, Mecklenburg County DA And A Member of the North Carolina Bar Association
Spencer Merriweather has served as district attorney for the 26th Prosecutorial District (Mecklenburg County) since 2017, and for 10 years prior to his appointment served in that office as an assistant district attorney under District Attorneys Peter Gilchrist and Andrew Murray. A graduate of Princeton University (2000) and UNC School of Law (2005), Merriweather is a member of the Mecklenburg County Bar and past president of the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation, and recently joined the North Carolina Bar Association and its Criminal Justice Section.
Where did it all begin for you?
I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. I was born and raised there, attended Catholic schools there – kindergarten through eighth grade – and then I went to the largest high school in the state of Alabama – Murphy High School. That high school is of historical note because it was the basis for the desegregation case that desegregated public schools in the state of Alabama. Interestingly, there is a direct line from what I knew as Birdie Mae Davis v. Mobile County Public Schools and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Those cases arose out of the same progeny, so it is very interesting that I now find myself in this jurisdiction.
Mobile is a long way from Nassau Hall. How did you get to Princeton?
It was a long way. My parents were both public school teachers. My mother had retired but my dad at that time was still a public school teacher. They took education very seriously. My dad had a second job as a parks and recreation director as well. I had a European history, art history and philosophy teacher by the name of Dennis Day who happened to be a Princeton graduate from the Class of 1958. He encouraged me to apply to the University.
I applied to 15 odd schools up and down the eastern seaboard and other places as well. I was fortunate enough to be admitted to all of them. I visited Princeton and fell in love with it. It was interesting to be within an hour-and-a-half train ride to New York City and an hour-and-a-half train ride to Philadelphia, which opened the world up to me in ways I couldn’t imagine. I think it is also fair to say that I have lifelong friends all across the globe because of my four years at Princeton.
And yet, I’d be lying if I didn’t say at times, I felt a little out of place. I certainly didn’t know anyone from boarding school, I didn’t know anybody who owned a Fortune 500 company, and I certainly didn’t know anybody who could independently afford Princeton, and I met some of those folks when I got there. When I got there, the motto was, “In the Nation’s Service and in the Service of All Nations,” so public service was a thing that university pushed from the day you walked in the door.
You first came to North Carolina for law school, but not right away?
Before I got to North Carolina, I graduated from Princeton and was student body president, so I immediately began a four-year term on the Board of Trustees. While I was on the Board of Trustees there, I ended up on Capitol Hill. I worked for former civil rights leader and attorney Eleanor Holmes Norton. Working with her, I knew immediately that I wanted to go to law school, it was just a matter of when. I believe it was not long after I took the LSAT that 9/11 happened in 2001. That framed a lot of what my next steps would be, and as I thought about where I would build a career, I knew I wanted to return to the South, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go all the way back to Alabama. I have become very fond of saying if you put New Jersey, D.C., and Alabama in a bowl and mixed them together, you might come up with North Carolina.
So that is where I ended up. I visited Chapel Hill and fell in love with it. I remember Gene Nichol speaking to a class of potential admittees about UNC being the public institution in the country that was the most proud of being a public institution. I found that to be true. I loved the people that I interacted with from all different corners of the state and in some cases from the country. I got an opportunity to really learn an entire state for myself. You had folks from the mountains and folks from the beach, folks from the foothills, and the opportunity to learn about where they were from was important.
What brought you to Charlotte?
My first internship after my first year of law school was in Peter Gilchrist’s DA’s office interning with the homicide unit. Incidentally, that was the summer I bought my first car. Charlotte was the first place I learned to drive, which was really when, if you’ve ever had the opportunity to spend a good bit of time in Charlotte, you can drive a straight line for six miles and have the street names change four times. That was an adjustment, but I just thoroughly enjoyed my time there and fell in love with the city. It felt like a place that was on the move and yet wasn’t finished. It seemed like an ideal place for a young lawyer to start his career.
I fell in love with the work. I fell in love with the types of decisions the mentors of mine were making. While I was in law school, I waited tables and tended bar, which was a really good reminder for me of my upbringing – I worked around people who worked hard for a living. Also, the nature of the place was to be hospitable, and that was how I was brought up. When I think about that relationship in the district attorney’s office: I was working around people all the time, and the decisions they would make and the interactions I would have around people in the prosecutor’s office, I knew would be immediately impactful. I learned pretty early that was the way in which I was motivated. In order to get the most work out of me, in order to get the most drive out of me, I was going to have to see immediately how my work was impacting the person right across the table from me.
And a few years later you came back to work full time?
Peter Gilchrist hired me. He was a phenomenal figure. I had the opportunity when I was an intern, on the last day of my internship, he took me to go have a hot dog. We both had a hot dog at a place called Green’s in Charlotte and he talked about why he decided to do this work and why he stayed in that work, which at that point was right about 30 years. Just hearing somebody talk about the role of a prosecutor, and it wasn’t about taking a side, it wasn’t about chalking up the wins, it was literally about the one job in the world where you’re only bound by your idea of what the right thing to do is. That was attractive to me and remains attractive to me, and has been attractive to generations of prosecutors who have come out of this office.
I took a little bit of time after law school before I came into the DA’s office. I started in April 2007, so I was just under 30 when I started. I had worked two years in D.C. as well, so I was a little older when I started in the office, but the gray hair you see on my head at 43 years old was not at all there when I started. I immediately started out with our traffic unit and within a couple of months I moved over to our Domestic Violence-Misdemeanor unit. It was probably there that I began to feel an immediate passion for the work. The traffic cases being extremely important, but in misdemeanor domestic violence court I was dealing with people who didn’t know whether they were going to be able to live through the week. The ability to be able to argue some of those cases, where there was such instantaneous impact, was something that I felt like I was called to do.
Judge Yvonne Mims Evans administers the oath of office to District Attorney Spencer Merriweather as his wife, Lila, holds the Bible. (Photo courtesy of The Charlotte Observer).
Fast forward 10 years, and you’re appointed district attorney?
I was appointed DA in November 2017. It coincided with the nomination and confirmation of my predecessor, Andrew Murray, (as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of N.C.) Andrew was kind enough, along with other members of the bar, to recommend my appointment to Governor Cooper. I almost immediately had to sit for a primary election in May of 2018 and then I was unopposed in the general election in November of 2018. I’m about three years into my elected term but I am about four years minus a month into the term of DA altogether. I probably won’t have the luxury of being unopposed the next time around, but we’ll see. Primaries are especially competitive in Mecklenburg County these days.
But I should also say that one of the attributes of working in the Mecklenburg County office is Peter Gilchrist was a lifelong Democrat, and yet in his approach to the job, partisanship never saw the light of day. My direct predecessor, Andrew Murray, who also worked for Peter Gilchrist, was a lifelong Republican, and again, in the day-to-day operation of the office, partisanship never saw the light of day. I certainly hope and believe the people who work under my command don’t believe they’re working in a political office, and again that their sole obligation is to make sure that they’re doing right by the people of this county that they serve.
How many people work in your office?
We have a total of about 85 prosecutors and about 55 support staff. I should note that of our prosecutors, about 22 of those positions are salary-capped ADA (assistant district attorney) positions funded by our county and city government, and a similar proportion of our support staff positions are also salary-capped and funded by our city and county government. That is an issue that certainly goes back to Peter, where we are a large metropolis and we have big city problems, and it takes a large office to run this place. And unfortunately, even with the largest prosecutor’s office in the state, we could use a whole lot more help here.
Most of the national standards that we have engaged with have indicated that we should probably be averaging around 110 to 150 prosecutors in our office. Part of that is so few people outside of our large urban jurisdictions in North Carolina realize what some of those differences are and how imminent the need is, but I also believe North Carolina as a whole – urban, suburban, all jurisdictions across the board – has just woefully underfunded the judicial system. We see that not only in the prosecutor’s office but also in judicial assignments and indigent services as well. We are a terribly underserved state when it comes to our judicial system.
Are these shortcomings more obvious to you now that you’re serving as DA?
That is certainly a great part of it. I’ve also had the opportunity in a way that I did not as a trial prosecutor to engage with folks from all across the country to just get a sense of just how bad off we are by comparison. And it’s a shame. When we have high-profile cases across the country and people are able to see those high-profile cases are often getting to trial in six to nine months from the time it is on the news, and then they look at what is happening in North Carolina, whether it’s Charlotte or Shallotte, and it can take years. There’s nothing that says North Carolina citizens are less deserving of quick and efficient criminal justice than anybody else, but somehow we’ve been conditioned to that and I think that’s a shame.
Has your new role brought you in closer touch with the legislative branch?
We certainly have been within the last year. I was pretty intentional about trying to build some stronger relationships. I know that, just like in the judicial branch, our General Assembly is filled with people who have immense responsibility and who come to this work earnestly and are doing a good job. I am a trial attorney by trade, so my job is to make the case to people maybe in a way that they have not heard it before. That isn’t likely to be a 30-day trial, and it’s probably not likely to be a two- or three-year trial, but for the remainder of my career. Here I am.
The truth is I was exposed to those issues before coming to the DA’s office. I used to wait tables and tend bar, and when I gave up that job and decided to join the DA’s office, I realized real quickly I was earning more money in the job I had than in the job that I was going to. Considering how much is at stake for people, through the interaction with prosecutors and the judicial system, that’s a shame.
District Attorney Spencer Merriweather (Photo courtesy of The Charlotte Observer).
From social unrest to COVID-19, how have you dealt with the challenges of these unprecedented times we live in?
I certainly came to this office in the wake of increased scrutiny in our criminal justice system. Probably one of the more notable episodes in Charlotte’s history was the slaying of first Jonathan Ferrell, and then years later the killing of Keith Lamont Scott. There was certainly a heavy community response which put a spotlight on law enforcement and put a spotlight on the criminal justice system.
The truth is that scrutiny was welcomed. I think whenever there is a light shone on those who hold authority, it can only make us better. I also believe that you don’t get better overnight. To get better takes time. But I believe we are responding by advancing the transformation of justice for the people we serve. It has not been easy. And it very well may be true that these last two years in the criminal justice system – with structures challenged both by social movements and by all we’ve been confronted with in the pandemic – may make this the most impactful episode on our society in perhaps a hundred years. I think the impact, not only on our judicial system but on our school systems, our health care system, and the economy and everything across the board, will be felt for years to come . . . if we’re honest, that’s as it should be.
Regarding the challenges specifically presented by the pandemic, I have frequently met with elected district attorneys across the country, and we all pretty much agree that COVID-19 has created conditions of terrible instability in our judicial system. And in a perfect world, you’d want to make critical changes to our justice system at a time when other societal structures were static, but history has never really operated that way. Leaders in our arena must forge ahead in making our systems more accessible and more equitable for all. For me, that starts with a sense of hope and optimism. I think you must have some level of optimism when you work in public service – particularly this sector of public service – because it reminds you that turbulence can have purpose in motivating us to do better and be better.
What the scrutiny of the social justice movement causes us to do is develop a closer and more direct relationship with the people we serve. A lot of times that is going to mean answering hard questions. Sometimes it is going to mean people are yelling at you. Sometimes it is going to mean you are feeling more directly someone’s dissatisfaction with the system as a whole. I believe that’s OK. I believe that is how the system was intended – that a person who holds the authority that I hold and the authority that other district attorneys and judges hold and other folks, we need to hear that. It reminds us and helps inform our conscience to make our systems better.
How have you managed to maintain the morale of your staff?
Throughout the pandemic and certainly through some of the challenges that have come with it, through protests, through everything, I have reminded people of the importance of their work. Everybody on my staff recognizes that they signed up to do this job solely because it was impactful. They didn’t do it for the money, Lord knows! They didn’t do it because they were going to get any special notoriety for the cases they tried. We always say it’s about the name on the front of the jersey, not the back.
We’ve had to remind people throughout that if you want to be impactful, doing this at this time, where the stakes are so high, where people are reaching for whatever level of public confidence that they can find, that this is the time to dig in and dig deep. I’d be lying if I didn’t say we have faced similar morale challenges that have been faced in education and health care and other systems across our society, but I think that I’ve been just wonderfully impressed with members of my staff for their fortitude, for their flexibility. We’re all finding new ways to do this work. That’s what the moment calls for. I think that’s what people want from us. That’s why I’m hopeful.
On the other side of that, I’ll say suppressed salaries and the type of volatility that exists in the market beyond the justice system and certainly the DA’s office does not help. I have grave concern that as we lose generations of experience that the public benefits from, and that as we lose our ability to retain talented people throughout our judicial system, when that goes away, our entire community suffers. But then we figure it out maybe 10 years too late. We’ve seen the federal government suffer that. We’ve heard about places like in the military as well as in our foreign service class and other places that have suffered from not paying attention to recruitment and retention, and we could be in for a similar wake-up call within our judicial system.
Please discuss the distinction as well as any pressure that comes with being Mecklenburg County’s first Black district attorney?
Certainly there is a sense of pride – I won’t say being the first, but being an African American – that comes from being an African American prosecutor, because it gives me an opportunity to allow people to see it and to experience the justice system in a different way. History is not lost on me. I think the fact I am an African American demonstrates that I have an obligation for making sure this system is accessible as possible.
When I wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, I am reminded of the fact that many doors have frequently been closed to people who look like me. People who look like me have not always felt represented or protected by government institutions. I also know that is true not just for people who look like me but for countless other people throughout our society.
If I am doing my job right, that ought to be a constant reminder to me to ask every day, ‘What am I doing for the vulnerable? What am I doing for the disenfranchised? What am I doing for the poor? What am I doing for those who are mentally and physically ill?’ Those are extremely heavy burdens to wake up every morning and look in the mirror and ask yourself, but I think that’s probably why they call it service. I’m under no illusion that I am going to cure all those ills by myself, or just within the district attorney’s office, but I do think all of us, just as generations before us did, particularly generations of African Americans before me did – we serve as ‘water on a rock,’ and over time we can help shape the obstacles before us.
What can you tell us about your diversity and inclusion program?
We have charged members of our office to create curriculum opportunities for every employee in our office to be extremely thoughtful about equity, diversity and inclusion in our office. More often than not that would mean exposing every employee in my office to . . . it could be history, it could be a perspective that they have never thought about before. Very often it will cause some reflection on the judicial system or the impact that we have in our judicial system. At times it has called on us to think about what trauma means for different people, based on their historical perspective. Some people could think of that in terms of cultural literacy.
I think before I ask a lawyer to go before a jury of 12, or before I ask a victim’s witness assistant to reach out to someone who has lost a loved one, that I need to know who they are. And we need to develop a sense of empathy. You do that by reflecting upon someone’s history, someone’s background, someone’s perspective, and recognizing how they hear you, how they feel you as a representative of a system that seems so much larger than they are. It is our obligation to make sure from what people hear from us and what people feel from us, that they believe we are working for them. I think that our diversity and inclusion initiative is one way to accomplish that.
Please let me conclude by thanking you for your recent decision to join the North Carolina Bar Association.
I felt like it was time. I had heard from certainly some colleagues of mine – certainly Kimberly Spahos (Chief Resource Prosecutor, N.C. Conference of District Attorneys) comes to mind, Peter Gilchrist comes to mind – as well as others who have said that the North Carolina Bar Association is a really great opportunity to engage with lawyers who are thoughtful about many of the same issues that I am across the state.
I will tell you as somebody who has had a prosecutor’s job starting at $38,000 a year that I kept my association memberships to a minimum because of that reason. But I am earning a little more these days, and it provided me with the opportunity to have that level of engagement. It’s real important too, because in Mecklenburg County we have a legal community of more than 5,000 lawyers, but you realize there is a legal community that expands far beyond the county line. I continue to learn lessons from lawyers all across the state through my affiliation with UNC Law, with my affiliation through the Conference of District Attorneys, through my affiliation with a whole host of organizations, but all of those folks sort of see the NCBA as a meeting place. They see it as a meeting place for lawyers from all corners of the state. It was time for me to be a member.
Closing thoughts?
I would like to say a little more about the direct challenges we face because of covid. I don’t think the public necessarily has the best grasp of what it means to slow operations for even six months in a judicial system. Various communities throughout the state have handled it in different ways. I live in a community that is particularly high risk, that convening our administrative session for District Court means putting throughout the course of a day as many as 800-900 people in a courtroom. We are about 18 months removed from being able to do that, and yet crimes still occur, infractions still occur, and all of that work has been on the shelf.
The types of decisions that the folks in my office that I know will be called upon to make, that other policy leaders will be called upon to make, I think we need to be sure we are doing a really good job of preparing the public for what that means. What I believe it means is that we have to position ourselves to make sure that our justice system is as responsive as it can be. I don’t believe that we are responsive as we can be when our chief concern is the case that is five years old. I believe that we are our most responsive when we’re talking about the case that’s five weeks old. You have to set priorities.
I am in the terrible position of having to tell families of homicide victims that they may have to wait four years before a case actually gets to trial, and that’s shameful. We’re going to make whatever types of system changes we have to make to expedite that, but as we think about crimes across the board, we’re going to have to make tough calls and tough choices. I think anybody who aims to be a responsible authority figure within this system has to be candid about that.
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.