MEMPHIS, Tenn — Reaction from the family of Tyre Nichols continues to come in after they say a new motion from the City of Memphis in the ongoing civil lawsuit over Nichols' death negatively affects the legacy of the 29-year-old man who lost his life after an encounter with Memphis Police's SCORPION Unit in 2023.
The motion filed Nov. 15 claims that the mother of Nichols' child testified that he was physically abusive towards her "on a number of occasions."
As of Nov. 17, the document filed by the City of Memphis was removed from public access. The document is listed in the court case, but no longer accessible via PACER, an accessible database of federal court records.
The filing also alleges that family friends of Nichols received payments from the law firm to "stand down" from making public statements about Nichols.
The filing alleges that Nichols was living in his car after an argument with his mother during the time frame of his stop.
“Information like this could sway opinion,” said Van Turner, Memphis-Area Lawyer and Civil Rights Activist.
In their own filing, Nichols family legal team claimed this move by the city the city brought unwanted attention to Nichols' child, the child's mother, and put their safety into question. The team also said the allegations made by the city range from misleading to flatly false, and included no support to back up the claims, in order to influence potential jury members in the "city’s most high-profile lawsuits in decades."
“Your potential juror, they watch news, they read papers, they get information from social media," said Turner.
In the filing, the family of Nichols' legal team made three requests:
- Seal any portions of the City’s Motion that refer to Mr. Nichols’ child or the child’s mother
- Prevent the city from filing similar motions the way they did
- Allow the Nichols' family's legal team to question the jurors to learn if they were influenced by the motion
“What makes it in front of the jury is what the court, the judge will ultimately have to decide…is if this piece of evidence is relevant to why we’re here, and that’s obviously is for the wrongful death of Tyre Nichols.”
The US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee granted the first of the three requests. Turner says the public will need to wait until the jury is being selected to see if the legal team is granted its third request. As for preventing the city from filing a motion similar, Turner says this is a good sign that the court will review this kind of information before the city publicizes it again.
In a statement to ABC24, the Civil Legal Team for Nichols' family said:
As court was closing this past Friday evening, the City of Memphis filed a motion with a laundry list of derogatory claims about Tyre Nichols and his family. The allegations range from mischaracterizations to outright falsehoods. Perhaps more important, none of them will be admissible at trial because none of them are relevant to the case. They are, instead, a calculated effort by the City to poison the jury pool in Memphis. Virtually every single claim in the City's short motion invokes stereotypes of those aggrieved as opportunists who should not be trusted instead of victims of abuse who deserve our protection. It is exactly these stereotypes that lead to police abuse like that which led to Tyre's death.
In filing the motion, the City's lawyers knew exactly what they were doing. And the citizens of Memphis should be ashamed their resources are being wasted with slander and nonsense. There should be no place in the practice of law for attempting to use court filings and then media as a tools for an unworthy defense and assassinating the character of the victims of the outrageous conduct of government employees who are supposed to serve the public. We were pleased to see that the defense filing was taken down from the court's docket portal. The City failed in its veiled attempt to suggest that events from years ago had a basis in his killing and that, therefore, Tyre deserved to die. The Nichols family and community and friends have been grieving since his death. The City and its officials seem determined to aggravate it.
ABC24 reached out to the City of Memphis on Nov. 18 for their side of what happened with the filing this weekend, but was told it would not comment due to it being an ongoing case.
However, city officials filed a response later that same night, saying that the threat to poison the jury pool could also be an argument used by the city about Wells' (Nichols' mother) Attorney's public statements. The city's filings also said that there was no objection to the redaction of the mother's name from court filings, but asks the court to deny the request to seal the city's motion.