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Georgia Could Prosecute Cops For Killing Eurie Lee Martin With Taser
Georgia’s Supreme Court has revoked immunity from three former sheriff’s deputies in the killing of Eurie Lee Martin, who was electrocuted with a Taser at least 15 times in four minutes in 2017 and died at the scene.
While this doesn’t guarantee that the ex-deputies will stand trial, it’s a stark departure from Georgia’s history of burying court cases of Black people killed by police. A 2015 investigation found that Georgia courts did not try a single one of the 171 cases in which police killed civilians.
A notable exception to that trend took place in Atlanta this year, when Fulton County district attorney Paul L. Howard Jr. levied criminal charges against an officer who killed Rayshard Brooks in June. The officer shot Brooks after he fell asleep in a drive-in line at Wendy’s and subsequently failed a sobriety test, and then ran away with the officer’s Taser, according to authorities.
“There are not many examples of White officers being held accountable for malfeasance and criminal conduct where the victim is Black or Brown,” Francys Johnson, a lawyer for the Martin family, told the New York Times. “What is typical is that there are excuses made. Any reason is enough and justification for the taking of a Black life.”
