Tag: Amy Weirich

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A New Third Rail

Nashville DA Glenn Funk (Photo: Courtesy Nashville Post)

Since the bombshell announcement last Friday of the Supreme Court decision invalidating the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion, numerous political figures — governors, senators, an abundance of political candidates, and smaller fry galore — have gotten themselves on the record either for or against the court’s dramatic reversal.

Few and far between are those politicians who have spoken in more qualified, measured terms, but among the most cautious have been the two candidates for Shelby County District Attorney — incumbent Republican DA Amy Weirich and her Democratic challenger Steve Mulroy.

Both had addressed the pending decision weeks ago, after a draft of the ruling-to-be, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, had been leaked to the media.

Weirich’s first utterance on the subject came early in June on the occasion of a ceremony in which she received the endorsements of the Memphis Police Association and the Shelby County Deputy Sheriff’s Association.

The full SCOTUS decision had not yet been formally announced, a fact which underscored Weirich’s reluctance when she was asked point-blank what would be her attitude toward enforcing Tennessee’s new anti-abortion act, a “trigger” law that would come into effect once Roe was dissolved.

“To answer that question, we have to assume a lot of hypotheticals,” Weirich said. “And I think any conversation about a law that hasn’t gone into place about a Supreme Court decision that may or may not be overturned … is hypothetical and, quite frankly, political grandstanding. To even discuss what our office would do, you would first have to assume that doctors in this community would break the law. And then you would have to assume that that criminal conduct was reported to law enforcement. There’s a lot of criminal conduct that doesn’t get reported about.

“And then you have to assume that an investigation is conducted and that there is enough information to make a charge against someone. Too many hypotheticals, too many hoops to jump through. And that’s not, that’s not the universe I live in. I don’t make conjecture statements about what I will remand or could or should do. We deal in facts, we deal in truth, and we deal in the evidence that’s before us.”

On Friday, Weirich updated those sentiments: “It is a dangerous path for a DA to make broad and hypothetical statements without an actual charge or case before them. To do so violates Tennessee Code Annotated 8-7-106, which requires a DA to consider the unique facts and circumstances of a particular case.”

The law referred to by Weirich is sometimes called “the Glenn Funk law,” after a Davidson County (Nashville) DA of progressive bent who has long made public his refusal to prosecute any and all cases dealing with anti-abortion statutes. Funk repeated his adamance in the wake of the Roe reversal.

Candidate Mulroy, asked weeks ago about his attitude toward enforcing the state trigger law, declined to make a Funk-like disavowal, noting that 8-7-106 allows the state Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor for cases disdained by local district attorneys. Mulroy did say abortion-law violations would be a very low priority in his tenure.

On Friday, Mulroy said, “This is a sad day. The politicized right-wing Court goes out of its way to overturn half a century of precedent, with women as the victims. As District Attorney, I’ll be very different from Amy Weirich.

“Weirich’s party and Donald Trump want her to turn her attention away from prosecuting violent crime and prosecute women and their doctors. We need to be focusing on carjackings, murders, domestic violence — not jailing doctors helping women make reproductive choices.”

Mulroy also said Weirich, who “won’t say what she thinks about prosecuting reproductive choice,” was “one of the few Tennessee DAs who, under a now sunsetted law, prosecuted pregnant women for ‘fetal assault’ for showing up to hospitals to get substance abuse treatment.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Blunt Talk

Steve Cohen (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Donald Trump’s visit to the Memphis area over the weekend, at the Landers Center in Southaven, may have served as many Democratic purposes as Republican ones.

The former president’s “American Freedom Tour” netted a few thousand butts in seats on Saturday to hear his familiar litany, at prices ranging from $45 to $3,995. As a payday, that’s not small change, and it followed by a day another well-attended bonanza for Trump in Nashville.

But Democrats in Memphis, a few miles north, got some profit from the occasion, as well. Among other things, they used the then-pending Trump visit on Saturday for an “anti-Trump GOTV Rally & Happy Hour” on Friday evening at the Poplar Avenue campaign headquarters of Democratic D.A. candidate Steve Mulroy.

After flashing some signs at the late-Friday drive-time traffic on Poplar, the group went inside and got together a counternarrative of sorts. The star of the occasion was 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who compared published ads for the Trump event to poorly done commercials he used to see on local TV for slapped-together country music shows.

Despite reports that the Trump affair was sold out, Cohen jested to his listeners that they could get “two for one” on the $9 seats. As for the $3,995 tickets, he said, “You get to go and shake hands with the president, and then they give you some stuff to clean your hands.”

Referring to the ex-president as a “narcissistic sociopath,” Cohen reflected on allegations of illegal activity by Trump recently made public by the ongoing congressional January 6th investigative committee. “He is openly and notoriously committing criminal acts against our government, like no other person in our political history has ever done,” Cohen said.

The congressman recounted how he feared for his life on the occasion of open insurrection in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. He told of how, barricaded in his office, he picked up a prized possession for potential self-defense — a souvenir baseball bat given to him once by former Chicago White Sox baseball great Minnie Miñoso.

“Ironically enough,” Cohen said, “Minnie’s son, Charlie, tweeted me, as did many other people during the event, and he asked, ‘How’s everybody in the office?’ I said, ‘Everybody’s okay,’ and told Charlie, ‘I’m sitting here with your father’s bat.’ He texted me back, and he said, ‘If he was there, he’d be there with you — ready to use the bat.’”

Host for the Friday evening affair, at which several Democratic candidates in the August election took speaking turns, was D.A. candidate Mulroy, who in his own remarks was at pains to connect the persona of Donald Trump with that of his own election opponent, incumbent Republican D.A. Amy Weirich.

Simultaneously with the Democratic rally, a new TV commercial on Mulroy’s behalf was getting airtime. Just as Mulroy did verbally to his audience, the commercial, entitled “Peas in the Pod,” yoked the images of Trump and Weirich, cast against a video of the January 6th mob in action.

A voice-over said, “Trump is bringing his mob to Memphis. Trump and D.A. Amy Weirich both break the rules and are out of control.” The ad continued: “On D.A. Amy Weirich’s watch, crime has jumped almost every year,” and a graph or two was shown by way of documentation. The soundtrack continued: “Now Shelby County has the worst violent crime anywhere. The worst president, the worst district attorney. We can do better with former federal prosecutor Steve Mulroy.”

Mulroy and Weirich are not playing beanbag with each other. Last week, after Mulroy had announced the results of a poll, which he said showed him with a 12-percentage-point lead, Weirich responded, “It sounds like Professor Mulroy is having trouble raising money and is cooking up bogus poll numbers to try and get donations. When your entire platform is built around freeing criminals from jail, it’s hard to raise money beyond the radical out-of-town Defund the Police activists.”

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Mulroy Campaign Claims 12-Point Polling Lead

Steve Mulroy (Credit: Jackson Baker)

The campaign of Democratic D.A. candidate Steve Mulroy has released a poll showing that their man leads incumbent Republican Amy Weirich by 50 percent of those polled for him, compared to 38 percent for Weirich, with 12 percent undecided.

Blueprint Polling, which conducted the poll from May 26th to May 30th, conducted a random survey of 350 registered voters in Shelby County.

A press release from Blueprint says the firm contacted people on both landlines and via cellphones, and “weighted the sample by age, race, and gender based on previous August general election turnouts.”  The margin of error was estimated as plus or minus 5.24 percent.

Noting that a previous poll with 26 percent undecided showed the same 12-point margin for Mulroy, Blueprint says the results suggest “that Steve Mulroy has ample room to grow into his Democratic base, especially with women voters — who are four times more likely to be undecided and are more likely to lean Democratic.

“Republicans are decided: only 4 percent say they are unsure about their vote. Democrats are more likely to be undecided, suggesting more potential to widen the lead. Weirich would have to capture all the undecideds, plus bring back at least some Mulroy supporters, in order to win.”

In an accompanying press release, the Mulroy campaign says it has attracted significant national attention. “A recent Huffington Post article highlighted DA Weirich’s inability to reduce crime in Shelby County. The article referenced Steve Mulroy as being ‘for a shift in Memphis’ criminal justice system and supports reform efforts …’ The article also noted Memphis’ record-breaking homicide years while the majority Black residents have been ‘… hurt by her ruthless approach.’”

The campaign also notes that singer/songwriter John Legend, citing the Mulroy-Weirich contest, has tweeted to some 13.8 million followers that “District Attorney elections are crucial to improving our legal system” and that Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck  has also weighed in on the race, saying that “Shelby County deserves a change. …”

Weirich responded to the Mulroy press release with this statement: “It sounds like Professor Mulroy is having trouble raising money and is cooking up bogus poll numbers to try and get donations. When your entire platform is built around freeing criminals from jail, it’s hard to raise money beyond the radical out-of-town Defund the Police activists.”

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Weirich, Morgan Get Endorsements from Police, Sheriff’s Department Associations

Top: Amy Weirich (3rd from right) at endorsement ceremony. Bottom: Worth Morgan (front and center). (Photos by Jackson Baker).

The Memphis Police Association (MPA) and the Shelby County Deputy Sheriffs Association conferred their official endorsements on two candidates for major office — Amy Weirich, the incumbent District Attorney General, and City Councilman Worth Morgan who is running for Shelby County Mayor. Both are Republicans.

There were separate announcement ceremonies at different locations on Wednesday. The first announcement at MPA headquarters on Jefferson, was for Weirich. After expressing thanks to the two organizations for their vote of confidence, she hastened to note a piece of news that she thought relevant to her campaign against Democratic D.A. candidate Steve Mulroy.

“We saw last night something that we rarely get an opportunity to see and that is consequences of potential decisions that we might make,” Weirich said. “In San Francisco last night, the district attorney was recalled. And make no mistake — the district attorney’s platform in San Francisco is and has been identical to that of my opponent, making statements that he would not seek the transfer of juveniles to adult court, meaning that murderers, rapists, armed robbers, armed carjackers, armed kidnappers, would face no more than two years in prison.”

Weirich was asked what her position was toward recent anti-abortion legislation by the General Assembly attaching criminal penalties to doctors who might violate provisions of the very restrictive new law.

“All that is hypothetical,” Weirich said. “You  would first have to assume that doctors in this community would break the law. And then you would have to assume that that criminal conduct was reported to law enforcement. And then you have to assume that an investigation is conducted and that there is enough information to make a charge against someone. Too many hypotheticals, too many hoops to jump through, and that’s not the universe I live in. I don’t make conjecture statements about what I could or should do. We deal in facts.”

Morgan’s event was at his Park Avenue headquarters in East Memphis. He, too, expressed gratitude for the endorsements. “Together these two organizations represent almost 4,000 members of law enforcement in our community,” he said. “They are on the streets, they are in our communities, they are in our neighborhoods every day 24/7/365. They know what’s going on. They know the issues that we’re facing, they know and see and interact with the victims and the perpetrators on a daily basis. And I ask that you trust their judgment, you trust their intuition, you trust their endorsement of my campaign for Shelby County Mayor.” 

Regarding his opponent, incumbent Democrat Lee Harris, Morgan said, “We’ve got a current county mayor that is not taking meetings with people, and people don’t want to take meetings with him. You can’t get it done.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Still Party Time?

Worth Morgan (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Not too long ago, Republicans held a one-vote majority on the Shelby County Commission. Then, for a spell beginning in the mid-aughts, it was on the slim end of a 7-6 ratio — still a force. As of 2018, the ratio became eight Democrats to five Republicans, and the “gentlemen’s agreement,” whereby the parties would swap chairmanships year by year, was allowed to lapse. If the Democrats win all of the contested races remaining to be settled in August, as they are favored to do, the ratio will be 9 to 4.

Though pendulum shifts of a sort will possibly continue, the general trend is clear. Assuming the continuation of partisan elections for county offices — begun under GOP auspices in 2002 — Election Year 2022 is almost a last-stand occasion for the Shelby County GOP as an electoral force, countywide.

By general consent, the big race on the ballot is that for District Attorney General, where Republican incumbent Amy Weirich, running as “Our D.A.,” hopes to continue for another eight years.

The thrust of Weirich’s strategy is made plain by that self-description. In what is a throwback of sorts to the days of Democratic dominance in the state, she chose, in a signal event last week, to downplay her party identification. This was at a Republican Party unity rally at the Grove in Cordova, in which Todd Payne, the party’s nominee for the Commission’s District 5, played something of a host’s role.

Following remarks by Worth Morgan, the Republican nominee for county mayor, who himself struck a basically bipartisan note, Weirich began, “I’m going to say something that may offend you. I don’t want your vote just because I have ‘Republican’ by my name.” Voters, like elected officials, should think in bipartisan terms.

Stressing the issues of public safety and economic development, Morgan also minimized partisanship: “You have to be able to bring all those different divisions of county government together, including the state, including the Memphis Police Department, which has a major role to play, and sit down at the table and work through those issues.”

In short, the Republican Party needed a “reach-out” strategy to become again what, in theory, it had been for much of the previous two decades — the governing party of Shelby County.

In an interview after his remarks at the rally, Morgan pledged to pursue a policy of “transparency” and to hold regular press conferences — something he said the Democratic incumbent, Lee Harris, had been “negligent” about. And he promised to process “without resistance or delay” any press or public requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

To regain something resembling its former footing, the Republicans need strong showings in other remaining contested positions on the August ballot besides the high-profile ones. Besides Payne in Cordova, who opposes Democrat Shante Avant, another determined GOP candidate for the commission is businessman Ed Apple, who opposes incumbent Democrat Michael Whaley in District 13.

At the opening last week of the Midtown headquarters he shares with trustee candidate Steve Basar, Apple mused, “One thing that struck me early on when I was going through the hoops to kickstart this race, was that it was binary: ‘You Republican or Democrat?’ Yeah. Can’t run as an Independent. It really bothered me that people I spoke with didn’t understand what stirred my soul and what made me decide yes. And the main reason was: This is about Memphis. This has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican.”

That’s the rhetoric, anyhow, but the reality is that county elections, for the time being, are still partisan ones, and, like it or not, the two parties are on the line, not just the candidates. And the GOP is up against it.

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Location, Location …

Weirich with F.F.U.N. founder Stevie Moore at the CarreFour center (Photo: Jackson Baker)

The two candidates for Shelby County District Attorney General held near-simultaneous events on Monday, at sites roughly 20 miles apart.

Incumbent Republican D.A. Amy Weirich opened up her campaign headquarters at 6645 Poplar in the CarreFour shopping center and addressed a group of supporters and other attendees there. Democratic challenger Steve Mulroy, meanwhile, was conducting a press conference Downtown outside the Shelby County Justice Center at 201 Poplar.

The location of Weirich’s event was essentially the subject matter of Mulroy’s.

The incumbent D.A. had sent out an announcement of her HQ “grand opening” Monday morning via an email, the subject line of which was “Don’t forget to stop by on your way home.”

That prompted Mulroy to call his press conference, where he noted the location of the venue, just inside the Germantown city line. In a press release that paralleled his press conference statements, Mulroy said, “The Weirich HQ opens in one of the wealthiest, least crime-ridden ZIP codes in the county. This is not only tone-deaf, it’s emblematic of what’s wrong with that office, where 90 percent of the attorneys and supervisors are white, in a 55 percent Black county where criminal defendants are almost 90 percent Black.”

Those numbers are basically the same ones he put forth in another press conference in early April, at which he charged that the lack of racial diversity was a problem with the Weirich-run D.A.’s office. And he offered some new “background stats” to buttress his remarks on Monday. “The Germantown ZIP code is the third-wealthiest ZIP code in Shelby County, with a median income of $101,000. The U.S. Census says it’s about 5 percent Black. The website crimegrade.org gives it an A+, the lowest-crime category.”

In other words, Mulroy seemed to be saying, Weirich’s injunction to “stop by on your way home” implied that her political constituency, in East Memphis and outward into the elite suburbs, was far removed from the actual urban landscapes where most crime occurred, with the further implication that Weirich’s concerns would be otherwise than focused on crime in the inner city. Other speakers at the Mulroy press conference conveyed similar messages.

While there was certainly a fair assemblage of suburbanites at Weirich’s headquarters event, her crowd was somewhat more varied than that, including such pillars of the law enforcement community as Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael, Bill Gibbons of the Memphis-Shelby Crime Commission, and Buddy Chapman of CrimeStoppers.

And she was introduced to the crowd by Stevie Moore, an African American whose son was murdered 19 years ago and who subsequently founded the justly celebrated F.F.U.N. (Freedom from Unnecessary Negatives), an organization whose stated mission is “to provide the at-risk community holistic alternative solutions regarding their social issues (i.e., drugs, alcohol, low self-esteem, crime, gangs, lack of educational and basic daily survival needs).”

Moore vouched for Weirich as “a person who’s in our communities, and I can call her any time. The problem I had with most of our political leaders, they don’t come out to our communities. But she’s in the community, and that’s why I’m here for her today.”

In her own remarks, Weirich defended her efforts to control and punish crime and lauded such developments as the Tennessee legislature’s passage of “truth-in-sentencing” legislation. She said she intended “to focus our energies and our work and our mission, on protecting the victims in this community, on protecting the families in this community whose lives have been forever destroyed by the violence. So don’t fuss at me about being too tough on crime.”

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Dem Brass Comes to Memphis, Calls D.A. Race a Priority

Hendrell Remus and Steve Mulroy (Credit: Jackson Baker)

Yes, Virginia, there is a Tennessee Democratic Party, the current Republican supermjaority in state government notwithstanding. And an impressive delegation from the TNDP arrived at the Flyer office Thursday, headed by the party’s state chairman Hendrell Remus (who happens to be an ex-Memphian) and executive director Brit Bender.

Their mission was made clear: With the county primaries over, said Remus, “we know that back here in Shelby County and in Memphis, the political climate is a little bit different. … We know that there’s some Democrats, incumbents, who won’t be returning. So we want to make sure that we’re able to coalesce voters, especially of our base, around those Democrats who have been nominated to carry the torch for us in August and beyond.”

Accordingly, the local primary winners, along with the other candidates and the party’s rank-and-file, had all been invited to Loflin Yard for a combination fundraiser and post-election rally Thursday night. “Hopefully, that gives us an opportunity to light that spark and grow,” he said.

Remus made the state party’s priorities clear. “We’ll be here making the case for [County Mayor] Lee Harris for re-election, because obviously, we want him reelected. But most importantly, the D.A.’s race is a top priority for for the state party this year, almost as important as the gubernatorial race is for the state. It is at the top of our list of targets for this election cycle. And so we’ve got to be intentional about where we put that investment in how we’re down here, coalescing people around the the nominee … to move the needle [and] give us an opportunity to bring everybody together.”

Remus referred to the post-primary invitation by GOP incumbent D.A. Amy Weirich to defeated Democratic primary candidates Janika White and Linda Harris, both African Americans, for a look-around in her office. He called that “a political stunt,” adding, “she [Weirich] has a diversity issue in her office. It’s a reality that that there’s no diversity in that office. So either one of those candidates would probably be more qualified than she is to run the office. But it’s a telling approach to take after a primary’s over.”

The chairman also alluded to the fact that “we have a Democratic incumbent who seemingly endorsed the [Republican] opponent, because she didn’t win her  primary.” That, it turned out, was defeated Circuit Court Clerk Tamiika Gipson, who lost the Democratic primary to City Council chair Jamita Swearengen. The potential beneficiary would be Sohelia Kail, the Republican nominee for the position.

So, per Remus, the state party’s mission was clear: Bring everybody together in common cause and energize the troops for what the chairman saw as the most important August contest — the equivalent, as he said, of a gubernatorial race  — that between Democratic D.A. nominee Steve Mulroy and incumbent Republican Amy Weirich.

Later, once a goodly crowd had settled at the Loftin Yard event, Remus wasted no time in broadcasting that message. Standing on a table-top, he said: “In this election cycle, the most important race at the top of that ticket, is a district attorney, a very terrible district attorney, someone who has shown that she’s willing to step into a courtroom and strictly show up to score. She doesn’t care about whether or not she’s telling the truth. She doesn’t care about whether or not she inconveniently leaves evidence in the backseat of the car, or leaves it locked up in evidence or somewhere else.

“Here’s someone who talks about being tough on crime. Someone who wants to drive the crime rate down. The entire time she’s been district attorney, the crime rate has gone up. It’s because she’s not tough on crime in a way that drives crime down. … We cannot cannot let her become the district attorney for eight more years. Imagine what crime will look like over the course of the next eight years. Imagine what that would mean for young black and brown children who are being charged as adults almost every single day, because her office is more concerned about scoring a win than they are about truly fighting crime in the county.”

The antidote? “We’ve got a hell of a candidate for district attorney,” Remus said. Whereupon he summoned Mulroy to the table-top alongside him.

Mulroy gave the crowd more of the same, beginning with an appeal for party unity: “I really appreciate the opportunity to speak here, and I’m really glad to see all of you Democrats. Democrats are in the house tonight. The thing we need to remember, in Shelby County, is we’ve got the numbers. If we stick together and we turn out, there ain’t nobody stopping us.”

As to the importance of his race: “Now, obviously, I am very concerned about district attorney’s race and everything that’s being said is exactly on point. There is a reason why this particular race in Shelby County is gonna get national attention. Our district attorney has received national attention over the last decade for all the wrong reasons.

“We [were] written up in The New York Times and in best-selling books for prosecutorial misconduct and ethical violations which led to overturned convictions. We don’t disclose evidence when we’re supposed to; we make improper comments to the jury when we’re not supposed to. And not only does it give us a black eye and erode public confidence in the fairness of our system, it also overturns convictions. So either we’re trying to convict people who are innocent, which happens a heck of a lot, or criminal defendants who actually are guilty are being let free, because we’re not playing by the rules. Either way, it needs to be repaired.”

Mulroy continued: “We’re number-one in the state in transferring young African-American men from juvenile court to adult court, where they end up in adult prisons, which are essentially crime colleges with no rehabilitative services, and where they’re more likely to reoffend when they come out. Ninety-five percent of them are black. We’re number-one in the state for the number of people who are languishing behind bars who haven’t  been convicted of any crime. They’re awaiting trial at 201 Poplar; they’re waiting their day in court. Over a quarter of them are there for 500 days or more, the longer they’re in there, the more likely they are to be black.”

And it went on from there — Mulroy’s catalogue of misprisions on the part of the incumbent. Eventually he summed up: “We can reform the system, refocus on violent crime, restore public confidence and the fairness of our system; we can get the community to cooperate with law enforcement in a way that they have not been. I’m going to end tonight in a slightly modified way, because there can be no Mulroy remarks at a Democratic function without a Mulroy limerick. I think it’s federal law somewhere.”

“So let’s make this a bash, not a bummer.
Let’s all march to the beat of the same drummer.
Thanks for Tuesday night’s win,
Let’s all do it again.
Let’s go kick ass and win this summer.” 

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D.A. Weirich: Moses Won’t be Retried

A February protest of the conviction of Pamela Moses (Credit: Paul Garner)

Amid a tangle of legal circumstances, the voter fraud case against Black Lives Matter activist Pamela Moses is no more.

District Attorney Amy Weirich announced on Friday that charges against Moses for an illegal attempt to vote were — “in the interests of judicial economy” — being dismissed.

There had been running controversy and a flurry of protests — both legal and streetwise — against Moses’ earlier conviction in criminal court for voter fraud and the severity of her prescribed punishment.

Judge Mark Ward, who had sentenced Moses to six years in prison after a trial in which she was accused of submitting false documents to the election commission, later awarded Moses the right to a new trial on the basis of newly reviewed evidence.

Part of that evidence was presumably a document from the state Department of Corrections which had erroneously stated that Moses was eligible to vote on the basis that her probation from a previous felony conviction had ended. Moses had presented this document to election authorities.

The department’s document was in error, however. Moses was still on probation at the time for her 2015 conviction on a variety of charges, including  tampering with evidence, forgery and misdemeanor charges of perjury, stalking, and theft under $500. Moses had entered a guilty plea on the charges.  

In announcing that her office would not go forward with prosecuting Moses in a new trial, Weirich said the total of 82 days in jail Moses had spent in jail were “sufficient,” and she noted that, on the basis of state law, Moses is “permanently barred from registering to vote or voting in Tennessee as a result of her 2015 conviction for tampering with evidence.” 

Steve Mulroy, one of three Democratic D.A. candidates vying in the party primary for the right to oppose Weirich in the August county election, issued this statement: “This case should never have been brought in the first place. But it’s reassuring to know that, after international press coverage, a court-ordered reversal, and months of sustained public protest, Amy Weirich will eventually do the right thing.”

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Mulroy Alleges Blacks Under-Represented in Shelby D.A.’s Office

Mulroy with supporters at Thursday press conference

“Racial equity” in the D.A. ‘s office was the subject of a press conference held by Democratic candidate Steve Mulroy outside the Shelby County office building Tuesday afternoon, and he got boosting on the point from three key supporters, two of them African-American notables.

Flanked by the Reverend LaSimba Gray and Memphis City Council members Patrice Robinson and Jeff Warren, Mulroy cited figures which, he said, showed that, under incumbent Republican D.A. Amy Weirich,  “we have a district attorney’s office that is 90 percent white, roughly in attorneys, and 90 percent white in supervising attorneys. This is unacceptable. It has been unacceptable for years, and it needs to change.”

Mulroy added, “African Americans in Shelby County are disproportionately the victims of violent crime. And they’re disproportionately the victims of systemic discrimination in our criminal justice system. Therefore, it’s especially important that we have diversity among the actual prosecutors that make the charging decisions.”

Backing up Mulroy, Robinson said, “It is so important to know that you are represented by your community in a like manner. What he’s saying to us today is that currently, we do not have the representation for African-American people in the district attorney’s office, in that most of the people who are being prosecuted don’t have people to represent them ….”

Said Warren: “ I had no idea those numbers were as dramatic. And I think I am certain that Steve Mulroy will make the changes necessary to make our district attorney office look much more like our city in general, like it should.”

Rev. Gray, who in the past has made a point of backing African Americans in primaries where both blacks and whites were candidates, explained why he was supporting Mulroy against two African-American opponents in the Democratic primary:”Obviously, he’s a better candidate. See, in this race, you’re talking about experience. You got some running with no prosecutorial experience. And they are saying that all around the campaign trail.” 

Asked about an accusation by state Senator Raumesh Akbari, in a TV campaign commercial, that Weirich’s office was practicing “racial profiling,” Mulroy  said, “In a 30-second commercial, that was shorthand for the fact that we have disproportionate charging of African Americans, disproportionate treatment of African Americans with respect to pretrial detention, with respect to adult transfer from juvenile court to criminal court, with respect to sentences that are meted out.”

Mulroy contrasted the amount of blacks participating in the Shelby D.A.’s office with the number of those in the D.A.’s office of Davidson County  (Nashville), which has far fewer African Americans in its population. “I can tell you the raw number of African-American attorneys, not just the percentage, but the raw absolute number is higher in Davidson County, even though their total attorney complement is 75 compared to our 115.” 

Responding to the Mulroy press conference, Weirich issued this statement:

“The data Professor Mulroy provided is not accurate but that’s not surprising since his entire campaign is based on false data and dangerous ideas like releasing more criminals from jail.  The percentage is 31 and I have 223 employees – not 148 as he stated. 

“As the first female District Attorney in Shelby County, I have worked hard to hire people who best reflect the community and I’m proud to have increased the percentage of minorities in the office since I was elected.  More minorities hold supervisory positions than any other time in the history of our office.  It is indeed hypocritical that Professor Mulroy, a white male who chose to run against three women, is  making diversity his platform. Electing him alone sends a disturbing message that women shouldn’t be in leadership roles.”

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Key Races on May 3 Primary Ballot

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. (Courtesy Shelby County Government).


As of Thursday’s filing deadline, the lineup cards are in for the first major voting of the campaign year: the county Democratic and Republican primaries of May 3, pending withdrawals by next Thursday. Most of the primary races are between Democrats, though a serious showdown in August will come for some of those Democratic winners, as formidable Republican foes will await them on the general election ballot. (Incumbents’ names are in caps.)

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

MAYOR: The County’s first-term chief executive, LEE HARRIS, will be favored against city administrator Kenneth Moody and Michael Banks. City Councilman Worth Morgan, a Republican, lies in wait for the August general election.

SHERIFF: FLOYD BONNER, JR., who also has de facto Republican endorsement, is highly favored against challenger Keisha Scott.

ASSESSOR: MELVIN BURGESS, who probably has ambitions down the line, should be secure against this relatively  unknown challenger, Roderick Blount.

CIRCUIT COURT CLERK: Veteran TEMIKA GIPSON will have all she can handle against challenger Jamita E. Swearengen, the current Memphis City Council chair and member of a prominent political clan.

COUNTY CLERK: Activist clerk WANDA HALBERT should be well positioned vs. Arriell Gipson (daughter of Temika Gipson), Mondell Williams, and William Stovall.

JUVENILE COURT CLERK: Retiring County Commissioner Reginald Milton could have brisk challenges from TV reporter Janeen Gordon, former School Board member Stephanie Gatewood, and Marcus Mitchell.

PROBATE COURT CLERK: BILL MORRISON is opposed by Eddie Chism and retiring County Commissioner Eddie Jones.

REGISTER: SHELANDRA FORD is matched against retiring Commissioner Willie Brooks and Wanda Faulkner.

TRUSTEE: REGINA NEWMAN will be highly favored against frequent candidates Roderic Ford and Marion Alexandria-Williams (aka M. LaTroy Williams). Former GOP County Commissioner Steve Basar will oppose the winner in August.

CRIMINAL COURT CLERK: HEIDI KUHN has won awards and is hustling hard to stave off a repeat primary  opponent, Carla Stotts, and Maeme Bernard.

DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL: The celebrated legal activist Steve Mulroy, a former County Commissioner and University of Memphis law professor, is favored  against two able opponents, Linda Harris and Janika White, for the right to challenge the formidable Republican incumbent AMY WEIRICH in August.

COMMISSION #5: The newly forged Cordova seat on the County Commission has drawn three formidable aspirants, the Commission’s able administrative assistant Quran Folsom, recently retired School Board member Shante Knox-Avant, and Reginald French, a prominent aide to former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton.

COMMISSION #6: Minister/activist Charlie Caswell is matched against former Young Democrat president Alexander Boulton.

COMMISSION #7: Former legislator and Commissioner Henri Brooks is hazarding a comeback against School Board vice chair Althea Greene, Kathy Temple, and Cartavius Black.

COMMISSION #8: MICKELL LOWERY will run unopposed and will have no Republican opponent in August.

COMMISSION #9: EDMUND FORD, Jr. will defend his turf against contenders Sam Echols and Sean Harris.

COMMISSION #10: Activist Britney Thornton, she of the unofficial homeless shelter, vs. lawyer Kathy Kirk, member of a Memphis political family, and Teri Dockery.

COMMISSION #11: Human Resources specialist Candice Jones vs. School Board member Misaka Clay Bibbs and Eric Winston.

COMMISSION #12: Erika Sugarmon, the well-known activist and member of a legendary political family, has challengers in Reginald Boyce, David Walker, and Jasmes Bacchus.;

COMMISSION #13: MICHAEL WHALEY, running in a new district unopposed, will be challenged in August by Republican businessman Edward Apple.

Other Democratic candidates: Donna McDonald Martin vs. Kerry White in Commission District 1; Lynette Williams in Commission District 2; Britney Chauncey in Commission District 4.

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

COUNTY COMMISSION # 4: In the only out-and-out Republican primary contest, BRANDON MORRISON is favored against challenger  Jordan Carpenter.

Running unopposed in the GOP primary are: Worth Morgan, Mayor; Stephen Cross, Assessor; Sohelia Kail, Circuit Court Clerk; Jeffrey Jacobs, County Clerk; Steve Basar, Trustee; Paul Houston, Criminal Court Clerk; Rob White, Juvenile Court Clerk; DeWayne Jackson, Probate Court Clerk;  Bryian Edmiston, Register; and District Attorney General AMY WEIRICH.