U.S. attorneys say ex-Memphis police officers in Nichols case want to attack his character
Federal prosecutors on Friday requested a judge order that evidence about Tyre Nichols’ character be excluded from public filings, saying the evidence would be inadmissible in court due to Nichols not being alive to defend himself.
The filing comes about a week after Martin Zummach, the attorney representing Justin Smith, filed a joinder motion to gain access to a trove of information from Nichols’ cell phone. In that motion, Zummach alleged that Nichols had a hallucinogenic substance, along with stolen debit cards, credit cards and photo IDs in his car.
“It appears from their early pretrial filings that Defendant [Demetrius] Haley, joined by Defendants [Tadarrius] Bean and Smith, will seek to attack the character of their now-deceased victim at trial in hopes that the jury will improperly and incorrectly conclude that he was undeserving of constitutional protection,” the filing from the U.S. Attorney’s Office read. “The United States requests an immediate hearing on this issue if necessary for the court so that any attempts to improperly and unfairly malign Nichols’ character stop now.”
The filing went on to say that Nichols’ toxicology report did, in fact, contain testing for psilocybin’s metabolite and “concluded that none was present in Nichols’ system.” The filing also called the allegations that Nichols had stolen items in his car “unsubstantiated.”
“The defendants should not be allowed now to use discovery and public filings to collect and disseminate inadmissible, unsubstantiated claims about the victim to publicly disparage him, particularly when the victim, by virtue of his death in custody, cannot defend himself or refute the defendants’ claims,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote. “Any defense efforts to improperly use discovery requests and publicly filed pretrial motions for purposes of attacking the deceased victim’s character are prohibited by well-established, binding precedent and the Federal Rules of Evidence. Furthermore, such efforts suggest an intent to taint the jury pool and improperly seek jury nullification at trial.”
More: MPD Chief Davis' past with Atlanta PD will remain in Tyre Nichols civil suit, judge rules
In a response filed Monday, the attorney who initially filed the motion to compel Nichols’ cell phone records, Michael Stengel, who represents Haley, argued that the motion from federal prosecutors was “effectively a motion for a protective order."
“Finally, it is disingenuous for the government to suggest that Mr. Haley is using the media to frame the narrative of his position,” Stengel wrote in his response. “Unlike the government, neither Mr. Haley nor his counsel have issued a press release, called a press conference, nor made a substantive statement to the media. By contrast, the government has been intimately involved with spreading its message about this investigation and indictment directly to the media.”
Stengel then linked to six press conferences, news stories and a press release.
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Feds say ex-Memphis police officers want to attack Tyre Nichols' character
