MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- After weeks of testimony last Fall and days before sentencing, Judge Norris announced he was stepping away from the Tyre Nichols case.

The court order for a new trial said that after Judge Norris' law clerk was shot during a burglary just days after the verdict, Norris said he believed one of the officers in the case was in a gang and that the gang was responsible for the shooting of his clerk.

He also reportedly said, " MPD is infiltrated to the top with gang members."

The new judge now over the case said even though Judge Norris' decisions throughout the trial were sound and fair, what is required is not merely an absence of actual bias, but an absence of even the appearance of judicial bias.

Memphis Attorney Michael Working, who chairs the Ethics Committee for the

See Full Page