A federal judge in Tennessee has ordered new trials for three former Memphis police officers who were convicted of felony charges in the beating death of Tyre Nichols following a traffic stop in 2023.
A jury in 2024 found Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith guilty of charges tied to Nichols’ death, which was captured on surveillance footage showing the officers assaulting him.
The three men were acquitted in May on state charges.
U.S. Chief District Judge Sheryl Lipman ruled on Thursday that, despite the officers’ lawyers claiming otherwise, there were no biased decisions made by the federal judge in the 2024 trial.
However, she said that new trials should occur due to a comment the judge reportedly made post-trial, stating the Memphis Police Department was “infiltrated to the top with gang members.”
These comments were allegedly made by Judge Mark Norris after his law clerk was shot in a carjacking incident on October 8, 2024, just five days after the jury convicted Bean, Haley, and Smith, according to legal documents.
An assistant U.S. attorney remembers Norris stating that he couldn’t meet with any Memphis Police Department members to discuss the shooting of his clerk due to the department being “infiltrated to the top with gang members,” as noted in the case details by Lipman.
Norris, who was to sentence Bean, Haley and Smith in December, recused himself from the case on June 13. The three have not been sentenced.
Lipman cited other rulings that said the due process clause of the Constitution can sometimes require a recusal even when a judge has no bias.
“What is required is ‘not only an absence of actual bias, but an absence of even the appearance of judicial bias,'” Lipman wrote, citing a past case.
Lipman wrote that “the risk of bias here is too high to be constitutionally tolerable” and that therefore the three officers deserved new trials.
Nichols was beaten by police officers after he was pulled over during a Jan. 7, 2023, traffic stop, he fled on foot, and he was further beaten by officers after they caught up with him, video that captured the incident showed. He died three days later.
The video, released around three weeks later, appeared to show police’s aggressive, chaotic and at times inconsistent demands of Nichols — like that he provide his hands while his arm was being held and he was being pulled to his feet. They also appear to show police punch him as he was being held.
In all, five now-former police officers were charged federally. Former police officers Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills pleaded guilty. They have not been sentenced.
