TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jun 5, 2025

The city of Memphis wants to use the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recent decision to retract its civil rights investigation into the Memphis Police Department to limit information it has to share with lawyers representing Tyre Nichols’ family and estate in a civil suit, the Daily Memphian reports. The city and Nichols’ attorneys have sparred for months over access to documents the city gave to DOJ as part of the investigation. The city, in court filings, is arguing that DOJ’s recent decision to drop the investigation should keep it from having to hand over the information. As part of its filing, the city provided a letter from Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon that said, in part, “The current Justice Department does not have faith in the previously reported findings in this case. Accordingly, the findings report is withdrawn in its entirety.”