A jury began deliberating Thursday morning in the case of three former Memphis police officers charged with federal crimes related to the fatal arrest of Tyre Nichols in January of last year.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered closing statements into the evening Wednesday. Over the course of three weeks, the government called 19 witnesses to help make their case that Justin Smith, Tadarrius Bean and Demetrius Haley went against their police training to use excessive force to beat Nichols after a traffic stop in January of 2023.
Prosecutors also say they -- along with two other officers involved in the arrest -- did not stop one another from assaulting him. Those two additional colleagues, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills, pleaded guilty and testified at trial that Nichols did not pose any real threat to them.
“Five officers beat Tyre Nichols. Five officers left him to die,” prosecutor Kathryn Gilbert said during her roughly hour-long closing statement. ”Five officers tried to cover it up.”
Defendants face an additional charge of failing to tell medical responders about the nature of Nichols’ injuries as a result of officers repeatedly kicking and punching him – at times in the head.
“They were the only people who knew what happened to Mr. Nichols,” Gilbert said.
Nichols, 29, eventually went into cardiac arrest at the scene and died at the hospital three days later. An autopsy found that he died of blunt force trauma to the head.
Had the officers disclosed the kicks and punches they witnessed, Gilbert argued, arriving EMTS and other medical professionals who cared for Nichols would have been better equipped to save his life.
The defendants are also accused of misleading their superior and omitting information about their actions in an internal report following the arrest. Prosecutors allege that there was a tacit understanding among the men that they wouldn’t tell on one another.
The prosecution urged jurors to use their “common sense” and rely on the video footage and audio captured during the arrest that shows the strikes and blows from the officers and then later them discussing it afterwards.
“Their choices cost Tyre Nichols his life,” Forrest Christian, with the Department of Justice, said during the prosecution’s rebuttal. "They beat a man who couldn't defend himself."
Defense attorneys pushed back. Each outlined how their respective clients tried to help handcuff Nichols who, they say, actively resisted arrest.
Nichols was “doing everything but complying,” John Keith Perry, who represents Bean, said as he addressed jurors for more than an hour.
Throughout the trial, Perry highlighted Bean’s relative youth and inexperience compared to other members of the team. He argued Bean’s strikes never hit Nichols in the face, and the former officer used police department taught pain compliance techniques to get Nichols to surrender his hands for cuffing.
“They were doing their job,” Perry said.
An attorney for Haley, Stephen Leffler, also said that Nichols posed a threat to officers by running from them before he had been searched. Haley kicked Nichols once, which Leffler said is also a form of trained pain compliance that Haley used to get Nichols handcuffed.
Among the defense’s cumulative nine witnesses, a use of force expert was called for each defendant. They testified that officers had a legitimate law enforcement reason to detain Nichols and operated within their training given the circumstances of the arrest.
“Policing is ugly. That’s why none of us do it,” said Martin Zummach, who represents Smith. He added that pepper spray had compromised Smith's vision during the incident.
Zummach cautioned jurors against trusting the testimony of witnesses like Martin and Mills, who entered into plea deals with prosecutors and are anticipating reduced sentences for their cooperation.
Prosecutors say that officers used brutal force against Nichols for running from them after the traffic stop as part of what’s been referred to as a “run” tax or “street” tax.
“[Smith] is not a member of a conspiracy,” Zummach countered, saying that several witnesses testified that they had never heard Smith talk about such a tax.
He emphasized that his client had previously turned in a fellow officer for slapping a handcuffed detainee, and had contacted his supervising lieutenant days after Nichols’ arrest when he reportedly learned of Martin and Haley’s kicks.
The officers also face charges in state court including second degree murder.
