Mawuli Davis

A $2 Million Resolution for Two Students

Video showed Atlanta officers breaking the window of a car occupied by Morehouse student Messiah Young and Spelman student Taniyah Pilgrim, firing Tasers, and pulling the students into the street during protests in May 2020. Mawuli Davis represented Young.

Atlanta’s City Council approved a $2 million settlement in July 2024. Young and Pilgrim each received $1 million. The representation preserved body-camera footage, police reports, medical consequences, and the students’ accounts through four years of civil litigation.

A Flash-Bang in a Nineteen-Month-Old’s Playpen

In May 2014, a multi-jurisdictional drug task force executed a late-night no-knock warrant at a Habersham County house where the Phonesavanh family was staying. The officers were looking for a relative who was not inside.

A flash-bang grenade landed in the playpen where nineteen-month-old Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh slept. It exploded against his face and chest, causing devastating burns and injuries that required repeated surgery. The search found no drugs, weapons, money, or target of the warrant in the home.

Davis represented Bou Bou and his parents with Richard Hendrix, Steven Wisebram, Candice McKinley, and other members of the civil team. The civil team had to identify each participating agency, the warrant information, task-force responsibilities, insurance coverage, the grenade’s deployment, and the medical care Bou Bou would need as he grew.

Four Governments, One Child’s Future

The civil resolution arrived in components rather than one award. Habersham County’s insurance paid $964,000 to the family after part of the policy was allocated to the property owner. The City of Cornelia paid $1 million. Rabun and Stephens Counties later contributed $1.65 million.

The combined settlement totaled $3.614 million and ended the federal civil-rights action and a related insurance dispute. The allocation reflected several governments and insurance policies participating in the same operation.

The criminal case against one former deputy ended separately. The civil settlement addressed Bou Bou’s injuries, future procedures, family trauma, and the responsibility attached to a coordinated raid.

The Eight-Foot Wall

Troy Robinson was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by DeKalb County police in August 2015 because an officer questioned its temporary tag. Robinson ran from the stop, crossed a road and parking lot, and tried to climb an eight-foot wall.

Officer Casey Benton said he fired his Taser while Robinson was still on the ground and that only one probe connected. Robinson’s family presented evidence supporting a different sequence: Benton fired upward while Robinson stood atop the wall, the electrical charge incapacitated him, and he fell headfirst, broke his neck, and died.

Davis and Sidney Moore represented Robinson’s mother and nine children. The case separated the legality of the traffic stop and foot pursuit from the force used at the wall.

When a Taser Becomes Deadly Force

The Eleventh Circuit decided Bradley v. Benton in August 2021. It held that Benton was protected by qualified immunity for the initial stop and pursuit. The family’s excessive-force claim survived.

Taking the family’s evidence as true at summary judgment, the court treated the Taser as deadly force because Robinson was elevated and an incapacitating shock carried an obvious risk of a fatal fall. He was unarmed, had made no threatening gesture, and had not committed a violent crime.

The court held that firing without warning at a fleeing person atop the wall violated a clearly established right. The ruling did not decide the final facts or award damages. It preserved a jury’s authority to decide when and where the Taser was fired and established a published constitutional boundary for later cases.

Settlement and a New Citation Policy

Johnny Hollman Sr. died after an encounter with an Atlanta officer following a minor traffic collision. Davis, Harold Spence, and their team represented Hollman’s family in federal civil-rights and wrongful-death litigation.

The Atlanta City Council unanimously approved a $3.8 million settlement in May 2024. The police department also retained a revised citation procedure explaining that a signature is not an admission of guilt and allowing officers to mark a citation as refused without making an arrest based solely on the signature dispute.

The Man Blamed for a Collapsed Interstate

When a section of Interstate 85 collapsed after a March 2017 fire, Atlanta’s anger rapidly focused on Basil Eleby, a homeless man struggling with addiction. Prosecutors charged him with first-degree arson and criminal damage and set bond at $200,000.

Lawrence Zimmerman, Gerald Griggs, Mawuli Davis, Gary Spencer, and Tiffany Roberts formed a five-lawyer pro bono team. They entered a not-guilty plea, challenged the rush to assign one person responsibility, and pointed to the combustible material stored beneath the bridge and the city’s failure to address homelessness and addiction.

The defense secured a $10,000 signature bond. Eleby entered residential treatment rather than remaining in jail. The bond plan included mental-health and substance-use care, testing, housing, employment, and continued court supervision.

A Criminal Case Designed around a Second Chance

In December 2017, prosecutors agreed to transfer Eleby’s case into Fulton County’s Drug and Mental Health Accountability Court. He did not have to enter a guilty plea. Successful completion of the eighteen-month program would require dismissal of the arson charges.

The legal team and community organizations helped Eleby obtain employment, pursue his GED, participate in treatment, and rebuild family and community connections. Davis’s firm hired him while the case was suspended.

Eleby graduated from the behavioral-health program on February 28, 2020, satisfying the condition for dismissal. The representation combined criminal defense with employment, education, treatment, and community support.

Naval Service, Organizing, and Law

Davis graduated from the United States Naval Academy, earned a master’s degree in public administration from Bowie State University, and received his law degree from Georgia State University in 2002. He founded his firm in 2005 and later joined with law-school classmate Robert Bozeman.

His legal work grew alongside nearly three decades of organizing. He participated in the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in South Africa, helped campaign to end cash bonds in Atlanta, supported removal of Decatur’s Confederate monument, and co-founded Let Us Make Man, the Black Man Lab, and the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights.

He has represented activists associated with Occupy, Moral Monday, and Black Lives Matter. His legal work overlaps with community organizations engaged in protest, education, youth development, public meetings, and legislative change.