Former Memphis officer being released from custody after new trial ordered in Tyre Nichols case

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A former Memphis police officer convicted of federal civil rights charges in the beating death of Tyre Nichols will be released from custody after a new trial was ordered in the case, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Demetrius Haley will be released on bond ahead of a new trial in the January 2023 beating death of Nichols, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charmiane G. Claxton said during a hearing.

Haley had been in federal custody since he and two other former Memphis Police Department colleagues, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith, were found guilty in October 2024 of obstruction of justice through witness tampering in the January 2023 beating of Nichols after he fled a traffic stop. Two other officers involved in the beating pleaded guilty and avoided trial.

Bean, Haley and Smith were convicted of trying to cover up the beating by failing to say that they or their colleagues punched and kicked Nichols and broke police department rules when they did not include accurate statements about what type of force they used.

Haley was also found guilty of violating Nichols’ civil rights by causing bodily injury and showing deliberate indifference to his medical needs, and also conspiracy to tamper with witnesses.

But on Aug. 28, U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman ordered a new trial for the three men. In her order, Lipman wrote that U.S. District Judge Mark S. Norris, who presided over the trial, raised “the risk of bias” when he commented in May that at least one of the former officers could be in a gang, and that gang may have been responsible for shooting his law clerk days after the verdict in the federal trial.

Lipman’s order also said an assistant U.S. attorney recalled that Norris told her shortly after the shooting that the Memphis Police Department was “infiltrated to the top with gang members.”

Norris recused himself from the case in June, just days before scheduled sentencings for the five officers. He has declined comment.

Lipman has not yet ordered a new trial date. She has set a hearing for Sept. 25 to discuss how the case will move forward.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Claxton, the magistrate judge, noted that Haley’s convictions had been vacated and that prosecutors had not sought to detain Haley before his first federal trial.

“Mr. Haley is presumed innocent,” his lawyer, Michael Stengel, told the judge.

Along with the federal charges, the officers also were charged in state court with second-degree murder and other alleged offenses. This May, Bean, Haley and Smith were acquitted of all state charges.

On Jan. 7, 2023, officers yanked Nichols from his car and then pepper-sprayed and hit the 29-year-old Black man with a Taser. Nichols fled, and when the five officers, who also are Black, caught up, they punched, kicked and hit him with a police baton. Nichols called out for his mother during the beating, which took place steps from his home.

He died in a hospital three days later.

Video of the beating captured by a police pole camera also showed the officers milling about, talking and laughing as Nichols struggled with his injuries. It prompted intense scrutiny of police in Memphis, nationwide protests and renewed calls for police reform.