Overview

• U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman vacated the federal convictions of Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith and ordered new trials.
• Lipman found that comments attributed to Judge Mark S. Norris about the Memphis Police Department and gangs, along with post-trial communications with prosecutors, created an intolerable appearance of bias.
• Norris recused himself in June and has declined public comment; Lipman said his trial rulings were legally sound but the perception of bias requires retrial.
• Lawyers have been directed to state which charges should be retried, and no new trial date has been set.
• Bean, Haley and Smith were convicted in 2024 on federal witness-tampering counts, with Haley also convicted on civil-rights charges, and all three were acquitted of state charges in May; two other officers, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., pleaded guilty federally and await sentencing as a $550 million civil suit by Nichols’s family proceeds.