DA Mulroy Pens Op-Ed for the Tennessean

A recent op-ed by Sen. Brent Taylor reveals more about his attention-seeking congressional aspirations than his actual concern for Shelby County public safety.  He assails our office’s supposed non-transparency without mentioning that we’ve been complying, to the letter, with the very data reporting bill he’s talking about.  His criticisms only underscore his lack of respect for the voters of Shelby County who elect local officers. 

The “Make Memphis Matter” Senator from Eads, who showed his concern for Memphis by carving it into three different congressional districts in a gerrymander designed to further his own ambition, recently criticized me for “suing to kill … before it even takes effect” a data reporting law that unconstitutionally targets Shelby County (only) with burdensome, data reporting requirements which siphon off staff time from real public safety work.   

What he doesn’t mention is that our office has been providing the exact case disposition reports at issue, on the schedule at issue (every 10 business days), like clockwork, since the effective date of that statute.   

Here are some other things he didn’t tell you:  

The law’s unnecessary.  A different law passed two years ago already requires all Tennessee DAs to provide this exact data about case outcomes, for all cases.  We’re complying with that law.  The data is, after all, public record, and has been so long before Sen. Taylor ever grandstanded his way across the Senate floor.  

The law’s unconstitutional.  Only the Shelby County DA office is being required to do these reports, which violates the Tennessee Constitution’s ban on “special legislation,” like the Nashville-Memphis-targeted school voucher law struck down a few years ago.   

The law detracts from public safety.  It requires us to treat federal task force cases differently from other cases, separate them out by hand, and compile reports on just those cases every two weeks, in a burdensome process that takes staff time away from real law enforcement work.  This drain on regular staff work makes us less safe.  

This is typical Taylor.  For years, he’s garnered press, attention, and fundraising from his far-right base by harassing our office.  A bill to remove me from office, which never even got a legislative hearing.  Five meritless ethics complaints, all dismissed. False charges of office finance problems rebutted by multiple independent audits giving us a clean bill of health.   

There’s more at stake than just data reporting.  Though he glosses over it in his op-ed, Taylor brags about a second bill with Rep. John Gillespie targeting my office, and says it “doesn’t tell Mulroy how to prosecute.”  But that second bill (which I’m also challenging in court) goes far beyond data reporting, and is even more problematic. 

Again targeting only Shelby County, this second law authorizes the unelected Attorney General to second-guess every prosecutorial decision we make, on all cases, not just federal task force cases; to access sensitive confidential information; and to turn it over to any or all of the 132 politicians in the Legislature.  If he doesn’t like what he sees, he can ask the State Supreme Court to appoint a shadow “pro tem” DA to take entire categories of cases away from the DA---in effect, to partially overturn a local election.  That goes against the plain language of the Tennessee Constitution, which specifies the need for local control over the DA.  

There’s more to public safety than the federal task force.  Taylor touts at length the work of the federal task force. That task force has certainly helped, but the welcome reduction in Memphis crime started two years before the task force ever got here. Taylor knows this, but fails to mention it, in a slap in the face of local law enforcement and local government.  

Transparency doesn’t require surrendering local authority.  I’ll continue to work for both.

Steve Mulroy is the elected District Attorney of Shelby County.