Even before the state trial began last month, for former police officers accused of fatal beating in the framework of Nichols in Memphis, the defense achieved an important victory.
Lawyers of the officers, to fluctuate in the form of jury from the surrounding area of Catanoja, Tin, persuaded hundreds of miles from the place where the observation and body cameras were seized by the officers with the brutality of Mr. Nichols, a 29 -year -old black man, in January 2023.
Once the trial began, the defense lawyers alternate to blame the violence on two other officers who participated that night, but they were not in trial after his approval. They also reminded the jury of the severity of the police, and how they are allowed to train in certain types of force at times.
“These are policemen serving in the most dangerous unit in the most dangerous city in the United States,” said Martin Zumash, the lawyer of Mr. Smith. He later described the officers as “doing a job that no of us here had the courage to do, to maintain our safety.”
All of these tactics are part of the playing book to defend police officers accused of excessive force, and some experts most likely said in innocence unanimously on all charges for all three defendants on Wednesday.
“Hell surprised that hell was because of the violence captured on the video.
Mr. Stouton also pointed out that “there is a big difference between the society that says,” We support the actions of the officers in this issue, “and society says,” We have no evidence for guilt here. “
The killing of Mr. Nichols is one of the highest cases brought by prosecutors against police officers in the five years ago George Floyd was killed. All charged officers are black.
All three officers were convicted of tampering with a separate federal trial in the past fall, and Mr. Halley was convicted of less than the violation of the civil rights of Mr. Nichols by causing physical injury. However, they were all acquitted about the most serious civil rights charge of violating his civil rights by causing his death.
But the innocence on Wednesday on charges of the state, including the second degree killing, adds to Mixed record Of the condemnations and patents and at least one privacy for police officers and emergency workers since the death of Mr. Floyd.
For many in Memphis, a city over the age of 600,000 where more than a third of the population of black Tennessee lived, the innocence was a troubled result contradicting what they saw on the video.
The mother of Mrs. Nichols, who is surrounded by an emotional crowd, gathered on Thursday outside the Memphis Museum, who stands where the mother of Mrs. Nichols, who is surrounded by an emotional crowd gathered on Thursday outside the Memphis Museum, which stands where the mother of Mrs. Nichols was shot, surrounded by an emotional crowd gathered on Thursday outside the Memphis Museum, which stands where the mother of Mrs. Nichols was shot, surrounded by a crowd. Emotional gathered on Thursday outside the Memphis Museum, which stands where the mother of Mrs. Nichols was shot, surrounded by an emotional crowd, on Thursday outside the Memphis Museum. “They failed in my son.”
Some police experts said that it shows the possibility of the jury in granting a deadline for law enforcement numbers and the second division accounts that they must sometimes do in a high -risk job. Mr. Stouton said that to prove the charges undoubtedly, the prosecutors had to appear not only that violence had occurred, but was illegal.
The jury also had to wrestle with the familiar question about the amount of deadly force that could be justified when it is framing as the issue of the officer’s safety. Michael Sierra Arvalo, a sociologist and professor at the University of Texas in Austin, said that although it is unconstitutional that police officers assume that someone will harm them, it could lead to behaviors and justification of some actions, said Michael Sierra Arvalo, a sociologist and professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
Defense lawyers developed Mr. Nichols as a strong person who could carry him against the officers, noting that he escaped from them at some time after stopping the speed. They also referred to the stolen cards and small quantities of marijuana mushrooms and Salosibin said in his car after the beating.
Another factor that helped the defense is that the other two former officers involved in the beating, Dizmond Mills Junior and Martin III, were not under trial. Both admitted that they are guilty of the federal issue; Mr. Mills also acknowledged that he was guilty of the state’s case and witnessed as part of his deal with the state.
It is not clear how the Martin state issue will be dealt with; His lawyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and prosecutors in the state said they were waiting for federal rulings to report the next step.
Prosecutors acknowledged that the absence of Mr. Mills and Mr. Martin from the defendant’s ranks had offered an opportunity for the defense lawyer to easily return their customers with legal guilt. on Video footage of the accidentMr. Martin grabbed Mr. Nichols from his car, and after that, after Mr. Nicoles separated and caught the officers, he kicked him over and repeatedly in his head.
Mr. Mills, who appeared after Mr. Nichols was arrested near his mother’s house, hit him several times with a stick.
Stephen J. Mulriwi, the Shelbe County lawyer, in an interview with Thursday: “Because two of the five most defendants who were in the Federal Court were not present at the trial of the state court, I think there is a structural challenge.” “I still think there is more than enough evidence to condemn it.”
He added: “I think we have a long way to understand the nature of the duty to intervene.”
In Memphis, no one has noticed that the jury was mostly white.
“One of the new experiences I went through, sitting in the courtroom, watching a fully white jury attempt to give the human character three black men in the killing trial who were accused,” said Dr. Earl Fischer, the great priest of the Baptist Baptist Church in Memphis. “They only did that because they were police officers.”
The response was in Memphis quickly when Mr. Nichols died three days after the beating, from the injustice injuries in his head. The elite police unit belonging to the officers has been dissolved Less than a month After beating. Last year, an investigation into the Ministry of Justice found civil rights a pattern of unfair treatment towards the police force by the police force.
“We believe in improving the police, in the training and progress that we see daily,” President Cerelyn Davis of the Memphis Police Department said in a video on Wednesday.
But the legislative body, which is controlled by Republicans, canceled some of the changes approved by the Memphis City Council in the wake of this.
President Trump signed late last month Executive order directs his administration To provide legal assistance to officers accused of violations. Indeed, in his second term, There was a migration from the Civil Rights Division From the Ministry of Justice, which ruled the federal case against the officers.
The administration ordered An immediate stop for all new civil rights investigations Shortly after Mr. Trump took office, in addition to stopping negotiating the alleged approval ceremonies, which act as improving plans to legally binding on the police departments.
Before Mr. Trump took office She refused to conclude such an agreement With the government, saying it will be intense and expensive.
Some of the residents of Memphis saw the ruling as evidence of a shift in the country’s positions towards the police and the lack of ethnic equality.
“The judicial system does not work very well at the present time,” said Demarcus Gatlin, 48, who is an old warrior in the disabled National Guard in the army.
“This has continued for a long time,” said Mr. Gatlin. “Urgent or later, with numbers, this will happen again.”
