Sentence Reconsidered For Black Activist Serving Four Years For Protest Comments To Police
Lawyers for a pregnant Black activist will ask a judge to reduce her four-year prison sentence for comments she made to officers during a 2020 racial justice protest.
NBC News reports that civil rights attorney Bakari Sellers plans to tell the court on Sept. 12 that the trial judge’s sentence of Brittany Martin, 34, is unfair.
Martin was found guilty of breaching the peace in a “high and aggravated” manner for her words, while Jan. 6 insurrectionists received much lighter sentences in a violent attack in which scores of officers were assaulted.
“She’s in jail because she talked in America,” said Sybil Dione Rosado, Martin’s trial attorney. “She’s a dark-skinned Black woman who is unapologetically Black and radical.”
Martin relocated to Sumter, S.C. from Iowa in spring 2020 and joined protests over the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Her activism was also personal. In 2016, Sumter police fatally shot her brother-in-law 19 times after he allegedly fired a shot at the cops following a chase in a stolen car.
During Martin's trial, prosecutors presented police body camera footage that did not show Martin laying hands on any officer, the news outlet reports.
During the May 31, 2020 protest, Martin is heard chanting on the footage, “No justice, no peace,” in an officer’s face.
At some point, the officers donned riot gear and discussed using tear gas, but the crowd dispersed.
In the heat of the moment, she told the officers: “Some of us gon’ be hurting. And some of y’all gon’ be hurting. We ready to die for this. We tired of it. You better be ready to die for the blue. I’m ready to die for the Black.”
The jury acquitted Martin of inciting a riot and failed to reach a verdict on her alleged threats to the officers. Jurors convicted her only of breaching the peace, which is punishable by a fine of up to $500 and 30 days in jail.
However, the prosecutors presented the charge as a “high and aggravated” crime, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. According to Rosado, Judge Kirk Griffin prohibited her from explaining the distinction to the jury, and the possibility of a higher sentence.
“The fact is you have people who stormed the Capitol, who led to the death of law enforcement, who tried to overturn an election and fracture democracy. And they’re getting two months, three months, six months,” Sellers stated. “And Brittany Martin gets four years.”
Slate reported that its analysis of 733 Capitol arrest cases revealed that suspects were allowed to await at home for court hearings at a much higher rate than the federal jail populations in 2019, and judges handed out much lighter sentences to the rioters. In their attack on the Capitol, the insurrectionists assaulted 140 police officers and caused $1.5 million in damages. At least five people died, including one officer.
