MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A federal judge has denied all motions for a change of venue for four of the five officers charged with murder in the 2023 beating death of Tyre Nichols.
The ruling came Thursday, April 4, as Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith Jr. all face federal civil rights charges, in addition to the murder charges brought forth by the State of Tennessee.
Attorneys for the ex-officers contend that the attention and media coverage surrounding Nichols’ murder would make it almost impossible to assemble a fair and unbiased jury.
U.S. District Judge Mark Norris said the burden is on the defense to prove that a local jury would be prejudiced against the ex-officers, and as of that hearing, that has not happened.
The motions to move the trial included transferring the case out of Shelby County and over to the Eastern Division of the Western District of Tennessee in Jackson. Another requested the trial be transferred out of the Western District entirely.
Attorney Stephen Johnson, who represents Martin, said they were in the process of surveying 200 people from the Memphis area and 200 people from the Jackson area to determine how biased local jurors might be. However, he said they won’t have the results of the survey until the end of May.
Judge Norris said that if the defense is able to provide evidence of juror bias, the motions for change of venue can be refiled.
Another major debate Thursday involved the questionnaire potential jurors must take in order to be selected. The prosecution said they are ready with the roughly 60-question document and have no problem making it available to the public. However, the defense again fears that publicizing those questions would impact jurors' ability to be impartial and that those potential jurors should be the first ones to read those questions.
With the trial set for September, Judge Norris said attorneys have until the end of July to assemble their jury pool.
The judge has scheduled further hearings to discuss publicizing the juror questionnaire, as well as whether or not to unseal additional evidence, for May 6 and 7.
The fifth officer charged with Murder in Nichols' death, Desmond Mills, pleaded guilty to murder and two counts of federal charges in November and will face 15 years in prison.
Mills pleaded guilty to two federal counts, for excessive force and obstruction of justice. Under the agreement, he waives his rights to appeal in the case, unless related to claims of ineffective counsel or prosecutorial misconduct.
The remaining four officers will start their federal trial Sept. 9, 2024, and state prosecutors will schedule a state trial for the murder charges at the conclusion of that trial. This is because a Memphis judge agreed to move a trial on state charges until after the federal case is decided. That judge also said he wanted the state case to move forward as quickly as possible if the federal case fell through for any reason.
The former MPD officers have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges including second-degree murder in the beating of Nichols after a traffic stop that was caught on video and his death three days later. Nichols died of blows to his head, and the manner of death was homicide, an autopsy report released May 4 showed.
Three Memphis Fire Department emergency medical technicians were fired for failing to render aid to Nichols. Two Shelby County Sheriff's Office deputies who went to the location after the beating were suspended for five days for policy violations.
During a Dec. 4, 2023, hearing, both the defense council and the state discussed the evidence they were able to review in the case. The attorneys said each defendant received more than 300 hours of audio and video evidence to look over as part of the discovery process.