4-year sentence to be reconsidered for pregnant Black activist jailed over remarks made at a protest
Raising questions about free speech and equal justice, Brittany Martin, 34, was found guilty of breaching the peace in a high and aggravated manner over comments she made to police.
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Pregnant Black activist serving 4 years for protest comments
Raising questions about free speech and equal justice, Brittany Martin, 34, was found guilty of breaching the peace in a high and aggravated manner over comments she made to police.
Brittany Martin, second from left, confronts police while demonstrating in support of George Floyd in Sumter, S.C., on May 31, 2020.Micah Green / The Item via AP file
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By Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A pregnant Black activist serving four years in prison for her behavior at racial justice protests will have her sentence reconsidered as she struggles to reach her due date behind bars.
Raising questions about free speech and equal justice, Brittany Martin, 34, was found guilty this spring of breaching the peace in a high and aggravated manner over comments she made to police. Her lawyers have been pushing for a lesser sentence amid increasing concerns about her health and that of her baby, due in November.
Advocates with Black Voters Matter have been circulating a petition calling for her release. Civil rights attorney and former state lawmaker Bakari Sellers will tell the judge on Sept. 12 that the punishment is unjust.
“She’s in jail because she talked in America,” said Sybil Dione Rosado, her trial attorney. “She’s a dark-skinned Black woman who is unapologetically Black and radical.”
Martin moved with her four younger children to Sumter, South Carolina, from Iowa in spring 2020 and was “ready to go and protest” after the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd sparked a nationwide movement that year, her sister said.
But Martin also had someone else on her mind: In 2016, Sumter police fatally shot her brother-in-law 19 times when officers said he fired a gun after a chase in a stolen car. When she took to the streets, she carried grief over her family’s past.
In court, prosecutors presented police body camera recordings including snippets of those demonstrations. Shared with the AP, they don’t show her laying hands on any officers. Videos from May 31, 2020 show Martin chanting “No justice, no peace,” in an officer’s face. Police donned riot gear and discussed using tear gas before letting the crowd disperse.
Martin used stronger language days later.
“Some of us gon’ be hurting. And some of y’all gon’ be hurting,” Martin told officers. “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 reached no verdict on whether she threatened officers’ lives. Her legal team was “elated” when jurors found her guilty only of breaching the peace, punishable by no more than a $500 fine and 30 days in jail, investigator Tony Kennedy recalled.
State law defines breachers of the peace as any disturbers, “dangerous and disorderly persons” or people who utter “menaces or threatening speeches.” But prosecutors presented the charge as a “high and aggravated” crime, which carries up to 10 years imprisonment. Rosado said Judge Kirk Griffin did not allow her to explain the distinction, and the possibility of a much stiffer penalty, to the jury.
Prosecutors did not respond to interview requests. Sumter police said it would be inappropriate to comment, given the potential for additional action.
Sellers called the sentence “beyond the pale.”
“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 said. “And Brittany Martin gets four years.”
Of the roughly 850 people charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, more than 330 have pleaded guilty to receive lesser sentences, mostly misdemeanors punishable by no more than a year.
