Once again, I have no opinions to share professionally. So I’m learning instead.
Steve Mulroy is set to be sworn in as Shelby County’s next district attorney general next week, after winning the seat in this month’s election and naming his transition team last week. Folks are chattering and wondering about what some of Mulroy’s “progressive” ideas on criminal justice will look like off the chalkboard and applied every day in Shelby County. I wanted to know, too, so I asked for professional help.
Josh Spickler, executive director of the criminal reform advocacy group Just City, is a member of Mulroy’s transition team. He has seen firsthand how the system works now and how we might see some of Mulroy’s ideas applied in the real world.
Memphis Flyer: What will some of the changes look like in reality?
Josh Spickler: The first thing to note is what’s not going to change. Steve is going to prioritize public safety and he is going to prioritize violent crime in this community. Steve campaigned on that, and everything he is doing and saying since the election is about that.
In terms of reforms and some of the day-to-day, visible changes, I think you’ll very quickly see, because of some good fortune and some timing, a bit of a different approach in pretrial detention with regard to the use of money bail. Steve campaigned on his willingness and desire to reform that.
Last week, the [Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court] judges signed a standing bail order, which is really big news. I’m a bit biased, but it’s one of the best standing bail orders — definitely in Tennessee, maybe in the country. A standing bail order is a plan put in place and agreed upon by all judges in a jurisdiction. So, all of our General Sessions judges — who are the ones, mostly, in charge of how bail gets set — they’ve agreed to significantly change the way they do it. They agreed to have meaningful hearings any time unaffordable bail is being considered as the only means of protecting the community and ensuring the appearance of someone accused of a crime. They have agreed to have attorneys for both the state and the accused present at those hearings.
That’s where Steve’s office comes in right from the beginning. When he takes office, he is going to have a new responsibility with regard to setting bail. Steve has said in his campaign that he believes fewer people should be held on unaffordable money bail. So, if Steve and his assistant DAs follow through on his campaign promise, we’ll begin to see that in those bail hearings. Fewer people will be held in our jail simply because they can’t afford freedom. That’s a big one.
So someone commits a crime, is held in jail until an arraignment hearing, and is just released — with no bail — until their court date?
It will be based on what is best for the community and what a judicial commissioner decides is best for that person at the time. That will be determined after a hearing, which is something we don’t do currently. Currently, we are not considering all of the required factors and are defaulting to bail — a seemingly arbitrary dollar amount — almost 76 to 77 percent of the time in this current system when state law says the first thing that should be considered is release.
What other reforms will we begin to see IRL?
Steve has also committed to a Post Conviction Justice Unit. He won’t call it that [because] … he’s not just going to look at convictions … looking for wrongful convictions, like looking to overturn something [perhaps] with DNA, for example. Steve has pledged to also look at sentences that may be inappropriate, that might be far too punitive.
Anything else?
On racial disparities, he’s pledged to not only build an office that looks more like Shelby County, but to also understand why it is that outcomes continue to be different for people of color versus white people.
These areas will be his focus. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that all of that leads to safer, healthier communities, and that’s the ultimate priority. Hopefully, any DA’s priority is to keep us safer, and that’s what Steve is going to do.
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