Smiley Martin, suspect in 2022 downtown Sacramento shooting, found dead in sheriff’s jail cell

Smiley Martin, one of two brothers held on murder charges in the mass shooting that killed six people and wounded 12 others in a deadly gun battle in downtown Sacramento in April 2022, was found dead in his cell early Saturday.

Sacramento County Sheriff’s officials on Saturday announced the death but not the inmate’s identity — the third fatality at the downtown facility since May. Hours earlier, about 2:15 a.m., deputies found the 29-year-old unresponsive in the jail’s 5-East-300 pod during a cell check. Martin was being held at the facility without bail. He was set to return Aug. 16 to Sacramento Superior Court.

Two law enforcement sources, who were not authorized to speak on the matter, told The Sacramento Bee that the inmate who jailers found was Martin.

The Sheriff’s Office will “complete a thorough inmate death investigation in accordance with department procedures and state laws,” officials said in their Saturday statement. Authorities declined to give further details about the incident.

Martin, who was wounded in the deadly shootout just as K Street nightspots were emptying out early the morning of April 3, 2022, was charged along with younger brother Dandrae Martin and Mtula Payton for the murders of three women killed in the gunfight.

Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21; Johntaya Alexander, 21; and Melinda Davis, 57, were innocent bystanders caught in the gunfight between two rival groups. The barrage also killed Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; DeVazia Turner, 29; and Sergio Harris, 38; authorities said that the men were also involved in the gunfight.

The Martins, Smiley and Dandrae, had served repeated stints in jails in Sacramento and Phoenix before their arrests in the deadliest mass shooting in Sacramento’s history.

Smiley Allen Martin was freed from prison two months before the deadly gunfight, serving five years of a 10-year sentence before his release. His release, possible because of good behavior and time served in county custody, became an ignition point in the political debate over sentencing and rehabilitation.

Trial was set to begin this year

In recent months, the Martins and Payton, 29, were back in a Sacramento courtroom for a preliminary hearing that laid out the chaos wrought that early April morning: 114 different shell casings, 94 of them fired from 9 mm weapons. Seven different firearms recovered, including one that had been converted to fire in full-automatic mode, were recovered from the scene.

The trial was expected to begin as early as November, according to court documents.

Smiley Martin’s counsel, Sacramento County supervising public defender Norm Dawson, received the news early Saturday.

“It was a pretty shocking blow when I got the call this morning,” Dawson told The Bee. In a later statement, Dawson said, “the public defender team representing him is deeply saddened by his unexpected death,” and offered condolences to the Martin family.

“It is most tragic that Mr. Martin passed away, fighting to defend his innocence in the preliminary hearing process,” the statement read.

In the statement, Dawson said he and Sacramento County Public Defender Amanda Benson have been in contact with the jail’s command staff.

“They are conducting their investigation. They will likely not provide any details until they have concluded that process,” the statement read. That process typically takes a year or more, though the Coroner’s Office was expected to release a cause of death and toxicology reports could come as early as August.

Linda Parisi, a defense attorney representing Martin’s brother, said she was shocked upon hearing of Smiley Martin’s death. The brother’s family is devastated, and attempting to discern what caused his death, she said.

“I can’t imagine how difficult it is for his family,” Parisi said.

She noted attorneys are in the middle of the preliminary hearing, still wrangling through evidence which she said appeared to show both Martin brothers were acting in self-defense.

“It’s very sad ... to be confined in jail while you’re fighting to establish your innocence” and to die in custody, Parisi said.

When the preliminary hearing resumes, she said she plans to continue to show her client, and Smiley Martin, were fighting for their lives when gunfire erupted.

Prosecutors: Martin fired 28 shots in gunfight

The Martin brothers were arrested April 20 in connection with the shootout at 10th and K streets as bars let out the night of April 3.

Authorities say the Martins and Payton were part of two rival gang groups that squared off and opened fire on each other, spraying at least 114 rounds throughout the streets where as many as 80 people were gathered.

In less than three minutes, Smiley Martin allegedly fired 28 rounds from a fully automatic Glock 19 handgun. In all, more than 100 shell casings littered the streets. Martin was wounded in the exchange and tossed the handgun — equipped with a 30-round magazine and a laser sight — before seeking medical attention at a hospital, according to prosecutors’ description of that night.

Before the shooting, Martin was seen with his brother and Hoye-Lucchesi on an Instagram video posted hours before the shooting several miles away on Traction Avenue in Old North Sacramento. The three were seen posing with two black handguns, one equipped with a high-capacity magazine, as well as a rifle, the documents say.

“In the video, filmed while the three men were in north Sacramento (territory claimed by the Del Paso Heights Bloods), both Joshua Hoye and defendant Smiley Martin discuss going to downtown Sacramento while armed to loiter outside nightclubs, display gang hand signs to the camera, point firearms at the camera, openly and repeatedly state their allegiance to the Garden Blocc Crips (“GBC”) and boast about shooting rival gang members,” prosecutors said in court documents.

In the video, Smiley Martin was also seen saying he could not enter any downtown nightclubs because he was not carrying identification.

Long history with strained justice system

Smiley Allen Martin’s journey through the criminal justice system started early. Sacramento County Superior Court records say he was convicted of first degree burglary in July 2011, just a few days after his 17th birthday.

Martin would have still been considered a juvenile at 17, and the file is sealed and details of the case aren’t publicly available. In any event, he was in trouble again 18 months later, charged with firearm possession in violation of the probation terms from the earlier case, the first of a half-dozen more convictions he’d soon rack up.

Martin “admitted to transporting the assault weapon and large capacity magazines to potential buyers,” according to a letter county prosecutors sent to state parole officials years later.

Court records show he was sentenced to 30 days in jail and placed back on probation.

Then, in May 2013, he was picked up by police in Arizona for marijuana possession. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, according to court records, and was to be sent back to California. It’s unclear in the court records how much time he spent in custody.

His next arrest came in Sacramento, the Monday before Thanksgiving 2013, when Martin and three other men were charged with a felony count of second-degree robbery for storming into a Walmart electronics department to steal notebook computers. Days later, surveillance cameras revealed Martin stealing additional electronics gear from area Walmarts and Targets during the Black Friday weekend sales. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Two more arrests followed — a stolen vehicle charge in early 2016 and a case 11 months later in which he gave a fake name and tried to run away after officers pulled him over in a vehicle. It wasn’t clear from court records what happened with the stolen car case. In the second case, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Martin released two months before shootout

In the spring of 2021, as COVID-19 cut a sickening and deadly path through the still-crowded prison system, the state was preparing in the spring of 2021 to potentially speed up the release of as many as 76,000 incarcerated people. Martin was among them, though Sacramento prosecutors urged prison officials to keep him locked up.

“Inmate Martin’s criminal conduct is violent and lengthy,” Deputy District Attorney Danielle Abildgaard, who prosecuted the case that landed Martin behind bars, wrote in a two-page letter to the state Board of Parole Hearings on April 29, 2021. If he is released early, he will continue to break the law.”

He was denied parole but by February 2022, two months before the downtown shooting, he had earned enough credits to be released and placed on probation. While he had been sentenced to 10 years, he got out after a little more than five years, including 508 days of credits earned while in the county jail.

Martin’s death in custody early Saturday in the Main Jail’s fifth-floor east wing follows two in the space of a week at the jail in early May. On May 5, deputies found a 45-year-old man unresponsive in a cell used by inmates to detox from narcotics.

One week later, on May 12, a man, 55, died in custody during intake, sheriff’s officials said. Sheriff’s officials said the man had been medically cleared to be jailed, but later became unresponsive while he was being fingerprinted and, after life-saving efforts failed, was pronounced dead.

Before Saturday’s death, 27 Main Jail inmates had been reported dead in Sacramento County Sheriff’s custody since January 2021.

The Bee’s Daniel Hunt contributed to this story.