A federal judge in Tennessee ordered new trials Thursday 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 convicted Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith last year on charges connected with the death of Nichols, 29, who died after he was punched, kicked and struck with a baton 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 a comment the judge was alleged to have made after the trial that the Memphis Police Department was "infiltrated to the top with gang members."
U.S. District Judge Mark Norris was alleged to have made the comment after his law clerk was shot in the chest during a carjacking on Oct. 8, five days after the federal jury convicted Bean, Haley and Smith, according to court documents.
An assistant U.S. attorney contended that she recalled Norris' expressing 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, 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.
Martin Zummach, who represents Smith, said Thursday, "I think Judge Lipman did the right thing."
Zummach said that defense lawyers learned of the comments attributed to Norris three days before sentencing had been scheduled. "I immediately said, 'We have to get a new trial. That’s the only right thing to do,'" he said.
Attorneys for Bean and Haley did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
Nichols was beaten by police officers after he was pulled over during a Jan. 7, 2023, traffic stop and he fled on foot, and officers further beat him 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 — such as 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.
Haley was found guilty of two counts of deprivation of rights resulting in bodily injury and two counts of tampering with a witness, victim or informant.
Smith and Bean were found guilty of one count of tampering with a witness, victim or informant, and they were acquitted on the three other counts against them.
Zummach, Smith's lawyer, said that because Smith and Bean were acquitted of the more serious civil rights counts, they cannot be charged on those counts again at a new trial.
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.
