Defense attorney in Tyre Nichols federal criminal case questions trial timeline

A defense attorney for one of the former Memphis police officers charged with beating Tyre Nichols following a Jan. 7 traffic stop is unsure the trial date set for the federal criminal case will provide him enough time to sift through the evidence provided by federal prosecutors, he said in court Tuesday afternoon.

Michael Stengel, the attorney representing now-former Officer Demetrius Haley, said he was provided with a "voluminous disclosure" of evidence from the Department of Justice on Nov. 2, which was the deadline to provide discovery in the case.

Stengel said in a motion requesting an extension on filing pretrial motions that the discovery he had received included more than 300 hours of video and audio and over 35,000 pages of documents. That motion to extend the deadline to file motions, along with a similar request made by William Massey, who represents Emmitt Martin III, was granted during a Tuesday afternoon report date in federal court.

Those motions will not be due by Jan. 8.

Massey, speaking to media outside the Odell Horton Federal Building after the court appearance, said there is still work to be done before he is ready to go to trial.

"There's still an awful lot of work to do, there's no doubt about that," Massey said. "But we've got a team put together for Mr. Martin, and I think we will be doing our best to be ready on the sixth [of May 2024]."

That team Massey mentioned included two new attorneys from a Knoxville-based law firm, Catalina Goodwin and Stephen Ross Johnson.

"I've had several cases with Bill [Massey] through the years, and I've known Bill for roughly 25 years now," Johnson said. "We have had cases together, tried cases together and I love any opportunity to be able to come over here to West Tennessee."

Tyre Nichols case: From the beginning to when trials are expected to start

What else was settled in federal court Tuesday?

Other matters settled, or somewhat settled, in court Tuesday included a motion to have a joint questionnaire for any potential jurors be administered. Further discussion on that topic is slated over the next few months, but Judge Mark Norris, who is overseeing this case, said questions that would be placed on the questionnaire would need to be sent to him in early March for the case to proceed on schedule.

A hearing date was also set for arguments about the admission of character evidence, with a focus on that character evidence not being submitted through publicly available means. Federal prosecutors initially requested citing that evidence should not be allowed in public filings after Stengel and Martin Zummach, who represents Justin Smith, alleged Nichols had a hallucinogenic substance along with stolen credit debit and credit cards and IDs in his car.

The government has argued that those allegations would not be admissible in court since Nichols is not alive to refute those claims and that the officers did not know those were in Nichols' car at the time he was pulled over. In that same vein, prosecutors argue that putting that information in publicly available documents could potentially taint a jury.

Prosecutors, in later filings, would suggest those documents that do contain those allegations be filed under seal.

What happened to Tyre Nichols?

Tyre Nichols was pulled over in the evening hours of Jan. 7. Officers pulled him out of his car, and took him to the ground according to body camera video made public by the City of Memphis.

Nichols eventually ran away from that scene, but was later tackled by additional Memphis police officers. Over the next several minutes, he was punched, kicked, pepper sprayed and hit with a baton. When medical personnel took Nichols to the hospital, he was in critical condition. He died three days later.

The officers were quickly indicted in state court, facing charges that include second-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault. In September, the officers were indicted in federal court for civil rights violations. Those charges include excessive use of force, deliberate indifference, conspiracy to witness tamper and obstruction of justice.

They face up to life in prison for both the federal and state cases if convicted. There is no parole in the federal system.

Desmond Mills Jr., another of the five criminally charged officers, entered a plea deal Nov. 2, which dropped all but the excessive force and conspiracy to witness tamper charges. The DOJ is requesting he be sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

Mills also entered a plea deal for his state case, which Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he plans to be the same length as his federal sentence, and served concurrently.

It is not clear what Mills' sentence will be, however, since a federal judge will have the ultimate say over that matter.

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: Tyre Nichols case: Defense attorney concerned over trial date