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Three former Memphis police officers who were convicted of federal charges in the beating death of Tyre Nichols will get new trials.
On August 28, U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman announced a retrial for Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean, and Justin Smith. This decision followed arguments from their lawyers claiming bias in their 2024 trial, as reported by the Associated Press.
The three men served as Memphis police officers in 2023 when Tyre Nichols was stopped during a traffic check and subsequently died after being severely assaulted by officers, who used pepper spray, kicks, punches, and baton strikes.
Another two officers, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr., had confessed guilt prior to the federal proceedings and were not implicated in the current decision.
Judge Lipman, in her statement, declared that U.S. District Judge Mark S. Norris did not display any bias in his rulings during the trial but highlighted a post-conviction remark suggesting potential bias, as noted by NBC News.
Norris reportedly commented about not being able to communicate with the Memphis Police Department after his law clerk’s murder, suggesting the department was “infiltrated to the top with gang members,” a detail referenced in Lipman’s judgment.
Lipman emphasized that it’s crucial to prevent not just actual bias but also any perception of judicial bias, as cited by NBC News.
Lipman added in her decision that “the risk of bias” was “too high to be constitutionally tolerable” and therefore warranted new trials for the three men.
Norris recused himself from the case before the officers were sentenced.
In the wake of Lipman’s decision, Smith’s attorney Martin Zummach told Memphis news outlet WMC-TV that Lipman “got it right.”
What happened to Tyre Nichols?
Nichols was stopped by officers on January 7, 2023 and ordered to the ground, where federal prosecutors said he was pepper sprayed. When one of the officers attempted to tase him, the 29-year-old father and photographer fled the area on foot.
Officers quickly caught him not far from his home and he was kicked, punched, and struck with a baton in the beating, according to the AP. During the altercation, which was captured on video, Nichols cried out for his mother.
“After the assault, the officers placed Nichols in handcuffs and walked away from him, leaving him writhing on the ground,” prosecutors said in a statement after the conviction.
The officers were also seen talking and laughing in the camera footage instead of providing Nichols with medical care.
He was later transported to the hospital, where he died three days later. The medical examiner would later determine that Nichols died in a homicide as a result of “blunt force trauma to the head,” prosecutors said. He suffered brain bleeding and blunt force trauma injuries to his legs, arms, neck, and torso.
Haley was found guilty of two federal counts of deprivation of rights resulting in bodily injury, and two counts of tampering with a witness, victim or informant in October of 2024.
At the same time, Smith and Bean were convicted of one count of tampering with a witness, victim or informant, and were acquitted on three other federal charges against them, NBC News reported.
The three former officers also faced state level charges in connection with Nichols’ death, but were found not guilty at a trial earlier this year, according to CNN.
