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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.
U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman ordered a new trial on August 28 for Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean, and Justin Smith after defense attorneys argued that the judge in their 2024 case was biased, the Associated Press reported.
All three men were working as Memphis police officers in 2023 when Nichols was pulled over during a traffic stop and later died after being punched, kicked, pepper sprayed, and hit with a baton by officers.
Two other officers connected to the case, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr., pleaded guilty before the federal trial began and were not included in the latest decision.
In her ruling, Lipman concluded that the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Mark S. Norris, did not make any biased decisions during the case, but made a comment after the conviction that could have shown a presumption of bias, according to NBC News.
Norris allegedly made a comment to others in relation to the shooting death of his law clerk, saying that he could not talk to the Memphis Police Department about the shooting because the department was “infiltrated to the top with gang members,” according to details included in Lipman’s decision.
“What is required is ‘not only an absence of actual bias, but an absence of even the appearance of judicial bias,'” Lipman wrote, according to 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.
