Shelby County DA's Office Responds to Senator Marsha Blackburn's Information Request; Corrects Material Inaccuracies
Office releases formal response letter and media fact sheet documenting errors in the letter's premises and data interpretation.
SHELBY COUNTY, TN — The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office today released its formal written response to a letter from Senator Marsha Blackburn requesting information and public records related to the office’s handling of violent criminal cases. Along with the response, the office is releasing a media fact sheet that directly addresses inaccuracies and unsupported conclusions contained in the original request.
The office is making these materials available to members of the media proactively because the original letter — and the characterizations it contained — present an incomplete and inaccurate picture of the office’s record on violent crime prosecution.
“We welcome scrutiny of our record. What we will not allow to go uncorrected is a letter that draws conclusions from misidentified data, and attributes judicial decisions to prosecutorial discretion. The facts show this office leads the state in violent crime convictions and years sentenced. That record deserves to be stated plainly.”
— DA Mulroy, Shelby County District Attorney
Why the Office Is Speaking Out
The Blackburn letter concluded that 82 defendants in violent cases received “no jail time” — a finding derived from subtracting two numbers in a dataset without accounting for pre-conviction incarceration. In reality, the vast majority of those defendants served significant jail time before their cases were resolved.
When the office reviewed the actual case files, it found that 16% of the cases flagged as violent were not violent cases at all, having been incorrectly identified in the request. In 20% of cases where defendants did not receive prison sentences, it was because a judge — not the DA ’s office — imposed that outcome over the prosecution’s objection.
The office has provided its response voluntarily and in good faith, going beyond what the Public Records Act requires. It is doing the same now by proactively sharing the record with the press.
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