Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by a group of five Memphis police officers who purposely and violently denied not only his civil rights but his humanity. Three of those officers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith, were convicted of federal criminal charges despite being acquitted of any wrongdoing by the charges brought by the state.
Unfortunately, those convictions are in jeopardy due to comments made by the judge who presided over the case, according to new reporting by NBC News.
U.S. District Judge Mark Norris expressed intense distrust in the Memphis Police Department after one of his clerks was shot in the chest during a carjacking on Oct. 8, 2024, and an unnamed assistant U.S. attorney claimed that “[Norris] 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.’”
Those comments are now coming back to bite.
U.S. Chief District Judge Sheryl Lipman said that she did not find any bias in Judge Norris’ handling of the Tyre Nichols case, but ruled that the officers in question should be given a new trial because “the risk of bias here is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.”
“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.
NewsOne adds that Martin Zummach, the attorney who represents Justin Smith, said he became aware of Norris’s comments just three days before his client and the other officers were set to be sentenced.
“I immediately said, ‘We have to get a new trial. That’s the only right thing to do,’” said Zummach.
The other two officers who were involved in Nichols’ murder, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills, have pleaded guilty to their actions but have not yet been sentenced.
We can only hope that the new judge sees this case for what it is and again finds Bean, Haley and Smith guilty.
