Wayne County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Opolla Brown
Photo courtesy of Icle
Wayne County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Opolla Brown has years of legal expertise under her prestigious belt that she has acquired throughout the decades while serving in the City of Detroit.
Brown, who became a lawyer after being inspired by activist Angela Davis (who she thought was an attorney), said that what motivates her most is fighting on behalf of the people: Detroiters, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“I saw a documentary about Angela Davis when I was 6 years old and I thought she was a lawyer,” said Brown, a native of Chicago (who moved to Detroit when she was younger), said in an article.
“I decided then that I was going to be a lawyer, like her (Davis). By the time I went to see her in Detroit, I knew she was an activist — not a lawyer — and a renowned professor. But what mattered most to me was that she was fighting for the people,” Brown said in the article.
Brown said that through her professional work, the backbone of her passions, she thought decades later people cut from the same cloth of Angela Davis and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wouldn’t still be fighting for the rights of Black people. Recent tragedies that have shaken the nation have proven that wrong.
“Here we are dealing with issues like police killing people across the country,” Brown said in the article. “What is really important for Detroit, and Black people in general, to understand is that as a prosecutor, you make those important decisions. You get to say (to police) that you violated this person’s rights; or I’m not signing this warrant because you didn’t have probable cause; or you’re not going to get this warrant because it’s not valid. As prosecutors, we’re in a position to effect change and improve the criminal justice system. That’s why I believe my work continues to be very important to my community and we need more Black prosecutors, period.”
Brown said that her work influences the community and in turn inspires her. Brown, who has served as president of the Criminal Law Section for the State Bar of Michigan and has been a board member for the Wayne County Advocacy Program, said that her mother was the backbone of her family growing up in Detroit, which helped shape her to be who she is.
“You know, as prosecutors we are not the judge or jury, and it’s not about victories or defeats,” she said in the article. “What we are trying to get at is the truth. And if getting at that truth can improve someone’s life, our community will be the better for it.”
