DA Mulroy Pens Op-ed for "The Tennessean" : Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy defends record, refutes Sen. Brent Taylor’s allegations

Politicians being political isn’t exactly a “man bites dog” story, but a respect for the truth sometimes requires that you point it out.

To raise his profile among his far-right base, Sen. Brent Taylor recently published in these pages a typically fact-free politicized screed falsely characterizing me as a crime-soft DA desperately in need of extraordinary legislative micromanaging. The facts say otherwise. He also proposed some misguided legislation.  Let me address both.

First, consider the source.  This is the same senator who promised the world he’d get the Legislature to oust me, even calling me “Interim DA” for a time.  Bereft of any real supporting evidence, the removal proposal gained no traction, even among the conservative GOP supermajority.  The same senator whose baseless complaints about supposed financial mismanagement were refuted by an audit by the Republican Comptroller which yielded no adverse ‘findings.”  The same senator who  is 0 for 5 for meritless ethics complaints against me, all dismissed by a state ethics board which could hardly be described as a left-leaning body biased in my favor. The same statesman who recently posted a video calling our county mayor “full of sh*t.”

His op-ed notably contains not a single specific fact to back up his general claims that our office fails to aggressively prosecute crime.  In fact, we prosecute over 40,000 cases a year, including over 3,000 violent cases, far more than any other DA office in the state.  We regularly publish a running tally of the hundreds of serious criminals we have convicted, and the thousands of years in sentences we’ve obtained (available at https://www.scdag.com/scdagdata).   We’ve laser-focused on violent crime with our “V11” initiative, which ensures that violent criminals, especially repeat violent offenders, are locked away from the rest of us. 

Anyone curious about the details should subscribe to our newsletter (https://www.scdag.com/newsletters), where each week we highlight just a few of the many, many just results we obtain on behalf of victims. That includes such high-profile cases as the tragic murder of Liza Fletcher; Ezekiel Kelly’s shooting spree; the two shooters in the hit on rapper Young Dolph; and a recent case involving a defendant who threw an infant into the river.

At the same time, I unapologetically discuss criminal justice reform, and emphasize the need for rehabilitation.  The senator may not like that, but my voters do; that’s why they elected me on a reform platform, with a 12-point margin, over an established incumbent.

 Senator 0-For-5’s latest legislative brainstorm is to require me to report to the local U.S. Attorney and General Assembly (within 24 hours no less) each time I dismiss or lower a charge stemming from the federal task force currently operating in Memphis.  There are a number of problems with this.

First, it’s unnecessary.  Every case disposition is already publicly available from a number of sources.  Second, it’s duplicative.  The Legislature already recently passed a law providing comprehensive reporting on case dispositions from all  DAs (without picking on a particular DA, which is unconstitutional). 

Third, it suggests that we should treat federal task force charges differently than other charges. That disrespects the preexisting and ongoing efforts of local law enforcement, who bring hundreds of charges each week independent of the feds.  I’ve instructed my prosecutors to treat all cases the same, basing each on the facts and the law, regardless of which law enforcement agency brought us the case. 

Finally, it’s administratively burdensome, requiring us to spend time poring over records to prepare unnecessary paperwork.  Over the past year, my staff and I have had to waste countless hours (i) responding to his baseless public attacks; (ii) replying to his meritless ethics complaints; and (iii) answering his repeated onerous document requests, which continue to the present day. This distraction and disruption has taken time away from the actual work of the office, and has in no way made Shelby County safer.  We do not need yet more busywork so that he can trumpet yet another meaningless legislative “victory” to his base.

I’m happy to answer discrete questions about my office from legislators of good faith.  I sense the General Assembly has passed prior “DA oversight” bills at least in part out of professional courtesy to the good senator.  I respectfully suggest that the time for humoring his attention-seeking is past. I hope that my staff and I can continue to work undisturbed for public safety in Shelby County. 

Steve Mulroy is the DA for Shelby County.