A US federal judge has ordered a new trial for three former police officers convicted in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, a young Black man whose death sparked widespread protests and calls for reform.
Judge Sheryl H Lipman ruled on Thursday that Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith must face retrial after their lawyers argued the original trial judge was biased, believing at least one of them was in a gang.
The officers were found guilty in October 2024 of obstructing justice by tampering with witnesses, but a fourth and fifth officer, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr, had already pleaded guilty before the federal trial.
Judge Lipman took over the case in June after Judge Mark S Norris recused himself. A notice filed by prosecutors revealed that Norris had expressed a theory that at least one of the officers was in a gang, and that he had linked the gang to a shooting that injured his law clerk after the trial.
In her order, Lipman said Norris's decisions during the trial were "sound, fair, and grounded firmly in the law," but a new trial was necessary because "the risk of bias here is too high to be constitutionally tolerable." A date for the retrial has not yet been set.
