Second Officer Pleads Guilty To Violation Of Tyre Nichols’ Civil Rights

Emmitt Martin was one of the officers who beat Nichols to death during a traffic stop.

Emmitt Martin, the second of five officers set to go on trial over the 2023 beating and subsequent death of Tyre Nichols in 2023, pleaded guilty on Aug. 23 to violating Nichols’ civil rights during the traffic stop.

Nichols, a Black 29-year-old father from Sacramento, California, who worked at Fed-Ex, was allegedly beaten by five Black Memphis Police Department officers so severely that it resulted in his death. The autopsy report declared the cause of his death was homicide caused by blows to the head, and it also described brain injuries as well as cuts and bruises to his head and other parts of his body.

According to NPR, Martin initially pleaded not guilty before changing his plea in U.S. District Judge Mark Norris’s courtroom in Memphis following a deal he struck with prosecutors. The prosecutors agreed to seek no more than 40 years in prison for the former officer in exchange for a guilty plea on charges of excessive force and witness tampering. According to the outlet, Martin’s sentencing has been set for Dec. 5.

Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said in a press conference following the hearing that it was both “very emotional” and “bittersweet” and indicated that although it was a step in the right direction, she would not be satisfied until the officers who killed her son are brought under the heel of justice.

“Tyre was just coming home. He was just minding his own business. I will never have my son back. I will never hear his voice again,” Wells told reporters at the press conference. “They murdered my son for nothing. And until we get justice for all of them, I won’t be content.”

In November 2023, another former Memphis officer, Desmond Mills, Jr., worked out a similar deal with the prosecution. He also changed his plea to guilty in exchange for an agreement that would not extend his prison sentence beyond 15 years.

According to NPR, both Mills and Martin could be called as witnesses in the trials of the other officers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith. All three officers are charged with federal civil rights violations, but they have all pleaded not guilty so far.

Judge Norris has set an Aug. 26 deadline for any more plea agreements in the case, but it is unclear if the remaining defendants intend to file any plea deals. All five of the former officers accused in the death of Nichols have also been charged separately in state courts on second-degree murder charges, but those trials have been paused pending the completion of the federal trials.