This story was originally published by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Subscribe to their newsletter here.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the United States, federal trials carry a prohibition against recording by the media. In our commitment to community-centered reporting, we asked contributing artist Mikhaila Markham to help us bear witness by illustrating scenes from the frontlines of accountability.
In the most functional sense, a trial is a community event. The American criminal legal system presents courts and their due process as a way to address our collective grievances and repair what’s been harmed. The widely circulated video of Memphis police officers fatally beating Tyre Nichols laid bare where harm happened. The recently concluded federal trial against three of those officers showed that repair is much harder to see..
Last week, a federal jury of their peers found Tadarrius Bean, Justin Smith and Demetrius Haley guilty of some charges related to the death of Tyre Nichols. Bean and Smith were convicted of witness tampering, but acquitted of civil rights charges. Haley was convicted of violating Nichols’ civil rights by causing bodily harm (a lesser charge that absolves the officer from causing his death), witness tampering and conspiring to hide the officers actions. They were acquitted of more serious civil rights charges they were facing.
“Tyre should be alive today, and while nothing can bring him back, today’s guilty verdicts bring a measure of accountability for his senseless and tragic death,” said the family’s attorney Ben Crump in a statement following the verdicts. Other officials echoed the sentiment that they were grateful the officers were held partially accountable.
Cases like these offer a unique perspective on the limits of our current criminal legal system. The individual police officers in the case are being held responsible by a series of charges tailored to each one’s respective involvement on the scene.
We’ve watched how Tyre’s family, particularly his parents, respond to the expectations that accompany their visibility. They are stewards of their son’s legacy, fighting to prevent it from being erased by the system that allowed his death to happen. They are fighting to keep another life from being robbed rather than protected. They know the pain of the wounds they carry in the wake of his death and how elusive it is to find healing.
This trial’s conclusion, while holding these police officers to account, comes up short in addressing the violent systemic issues that created the circumstances that led to Tyre’s death and keep our communities under oppression. Healing requires justice, but scenes of justice in our criminal legal system are rare.
SEPT. 20, 2024 | The three defendants — Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith and Taddarius Bean — were all seated along the left wall, facing the jury. They did not testify during the proceedings. While they were tried together, each faced individual charges and was represented by their own attorney. During the trial, the attorneys repeatedly shifted blame onto the other defendants.
SEPT. 20, 2024 | (Left) Federal judge Mark S. Norris presided over the case. (Right) Dr. Marco Ross, the chief medical examiner who wrote Tyre Nichols’ autopsy report, testified to the internal and external injuries Nichols suffered. “Nothing would have reversed it [the brain damage] other than preventing the cardiac arrest,” Ross said. “There is nothing that would have made those injuries heal any more quickly.”
SEPT. 25, 2024 | Former Memphis police officer Desmond Mills testified for the prosecution over two days. “I made his child fatherless,” an emotional Mills said from the stand on the first day. In the cross examination, attorney John Keith Perry — representing Bean — asserted that Mills was the only officer whose hands were free, and therefore the only officer who could have prevented former officer Emmitt Martin III from beating Nichols. Mills denied this, maintaining that any one of the officers on scene could have intervened. Faced with charges of his own, Mills pleaded guilty last fall to civil rights and conspiracy charges arising from Nichols’ death.
OCT 3. 2024 | Activists, elected officials, and friends attended court regularly alongside the Wells family to observe and offer comfort. Pictured here are (left to right) Amber Sherman, a Memphis-rooted activist; Keyana Dixon, Tyre’s older sister and Tennessee state representative Justin J. Pearson.
SEPT. 27, 2024 | After a morning of testimony, Judge Norris dismissed the jury for a break. People in court are asked to stand and wait when that happens. Most stood facing forward. As she stood, RowVaughn Wells turned towards the aisle and paused before walking out.
SEPT. 25, 2024 | Haley, Bean, and Smith listened to former Memphis police officer Desmond Mills testify in detail about the choices they made together to cover up their role in killing Tyre Nichols.
OCT. 2, 2024 | (Left) Attorneys John Keith Perry, representing Bean, and (right) Martin Zummach, representing Smith, during their closing arguments. Perry used a visual aid to chart what he argued was a case against his client that did not meet a burden of proof for his guilt. According to him, Bean was following Memphis Police Department policies, broken as they are, faithfully. “Make the decision, the right decision, because you got the receipts,” Perry said. “Don’t defund the police. Refund Mr. Bean.” Zummach’s closing asked the jury to consider the key roles Martin and Mills, the two officers who already pleaded guilty, took in the beating and attempted cover-up when making a decision about Smith. He also referred to his client’s former supervisor, a retired police officer, who said: “If it was one of my kids that had done something to be arrested, I’d want Justin arresting them.”
OCT. 2, 2024 | (Left) Attorney Stephen Leffler, representing Haley, used a large timer to illustrate to the court how much time elapsed before his client made it to the second scene of the MPD’s stop on Nichols. It was at the second scene, a few feet away from his mother’s home, where the fatal assault on Nichols took place. (Top right) RowVaughn Wells and (bottom right) Judge Norris watch.
OCT. 3, 2024 | After the jury handed down their verdict, Tyreece Miller (right), the United States Marshal for the Western District of Tennessee, escorted the three former police officers out of the courtroom.
Mikhaila Markham is a visual artist based in Memphis. Her work can be viewed on her website: mikhailamarkham.com
Andrea Morales is the visuals director for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at andrea.morales@mlk50.com
