A Tennessee federal judge on Thursday ordered new trials for three former Memphis police officers who were convicted of felony counts in the beating death of Tyre Nichols after a 2023 traffic stop.
A federal jury in 2024 convicted Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith on charges connected with the death of Nichols, who died after being pummeled by officers, assaults that were captured on surveillance video.
The three men were acquitted in May on state charges.
In a ruling Thursday, U.S. Chief District Judge Sheryl Lipman did not find any biased decisions by the federal judge in the 2024 case, as the officers’ attorneys argued.
But she said new trials were warranted because of an alleged comment the judge made following the trial that the Memphis Police Department was “‘infiltrated to the top with gang members.”
The judge, Mark Norris, allegedly made the comment after his law clerk was shot in the chest during a carjacking on Oct. 8, 2024, five days after the federal jury convicted Bean, Haley and Smith, according to court documents.
An assistant U.S. attorney contended that they recalled Norris express that “he could not meet with any member of the Memphis Police Department to give a statement regarding the shooting of his clerk, as MPD is ‘infiltrated to the top with gang members,’” according to background of the case cited 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.
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