A judge has granted a new trial for three of the former Memphis police officers convicted of federal crimes connected to Tyre Nichols’ beating death in 2023.
The decision follows months of uncertainty as to why the original judge overseeing the case, Mark Norris, recused himself just days before the men were to be sentenced in June.
Tadarrius Bean, Justin Smith and Demetrius Haley were all found guilty of misleading or lying to their superiors about their actions the night of Nichols’ fatal arrest.
The men, along with two other colleagues, were captured on video footage either restraining, punching, kicking or striking Nichols with a baton after he fled an initial traffic stop. Nichols eventually went unconscious at the scene and died in the hospital three days later.
A jury acquitted Smith and Bean of three additional charges against them including using excessive force and failing to tend to Nichols’ medical needs. Jurors found Haley guilty on all charges but on a lesser civil rights violation of causing injury to Nichols and not his death.
Desmond Mills and Emmitt Martin pleaded guilty, and in a deal with prosecutors, testified against their former colleagues at a trial in the fall of 2024.
In her ruling granting defense attorneys’ request for a new trial, Judge Sheryl Lipman found that comments Norris made following the trial’s verdict could have created a perception of bias. Although, she also noted that she didn’t find any of his rulings throughout the trial to be biased but instead compliant with the law.
“What is required is 'not only an absence of actual bias, but an absence of even the appearance of judicial bias,'” Lipman wrote.
Norris’ alleged comments in question stemmed from the non-fatal shooting of one of his law clerks during a carjacking, which took place just days after the trial’s conclusion in October 2024. Federal prosecutors and investigators met with Norris in May to tell him that there would be no federal charges for the shooting.
According to a disclosure from the local US Attorney’s office, Norris allegedly “indicated that his theory or belief” was that at least one of the defendants charged with Nichols’ death “was in a gang and that the gang was responsible for the shooting of his clerk.”
Norris also allegedly told a prosecutor shortly after the shooting 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.’”
Defense attorneys for Smith, Bean and Haley argued that Norris’ comments demonstrated bias in violation of their rights to due process.
“Judge Norris made the gang statements on at least two occasions, demonstrating that it is a firmly held belief, not an off-hand remark,” Haley’s attorney wrote.
Judge Lipman will now meet with prosecutors and the defense Sept. 15 to determine next steps.
John Keith Perry, Bean’s attorney, declined to comment. Haley's defense and the US Attorney's office did not reply to a request for comment.
In a separate state trial earlier this year, a jury acquitted Smith, Haley and Bean of second degree murder and other charges related to Nichol’s death.
