On Thursday (Aug. 28), a federal judge ordered a new trial for three former Memphis Police Department officers who were found guilty in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, a FedEx worker, in 2023. Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman cited the appearance of bias as the primary reason, pointing to comments made by the judge who had previously overseen the trial made afterward, suggesting that one of the defendants was a gang member. Lipman also said the new trial “would serve the interest of justice.”
The request was precipitated by the abrupt recusal of Judge Mark Norris three days before the former cops – Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith – were to be sentenced after being found guilty on federal witness tampering charges. They had been acquitted on the more serious charge of violating Nichols’ civil rights through causing his death. The other two, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., pleaded guilty and testified against their former co-workers.
Unsealed court documents related to the case showed that the defendants had asked for a new trial last June, citing Judge Norris’ frustration after one of his law clerks was shot during an apparent carjacking days after the verdict last October. The documents also showed Norris alleging that one of the defendants was a gang member in conversations with a prosecutor last May and claiming that the Memphis Police Department was “infiltrated to the top with gang members,” which the Department of Justice denied.
In Judge Lipman’s statement granting the request for a new trial, she pointed to Norris’ comments stating that if it was based only on his conduct during the trial, it wouldn’t have been granted. But she felt that “the risk of bias here is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.” She set a deadline of Sept. 15 for those parties involved to decide which charges will be ruled upon in the new trial.
Several lawyers involved with the case, as well as Judge Norris, declined to comment on the new trial. “Judge Lipman did the morally and ethically correct thing,” said Martin Zummach, Justin Smith’s lawyer, to the New York Times. According to reporting by local network Fox13, Tyre Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells expressed her anger over the developments on Facebook, writing that she was “p-ssed.”
