Mulroy against the ropes in Memphis

Seven months ago, Tennessee State Senator Brent Taylor announced that he would pursue the ouster of Memphis District Attorney Steven Mulroy. “I just reached a breaking point,” Taylor told us last week when we sat down with him for an update. He considers Mulroy a friend and colleague after knowing him for more than two decades and serving with him on the Shelby County Board of Commissioners. According to Taylor, the straw that broke the camel’s back was over the summer when Mulroy decided to reduce the sentence for felons found in possession of firearms.

According to the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, Mulroy has received north of $600,000 in Soros donations. “He is following the Soros-funded DA playbook,” said Taylor. At the beginning of Tennessee’s 114th General Assembly, the Memphis senator passed a resolution establishing a select committee made up of five House members and five Senate members to investigate claims against Mulroy. At the end of their work, they will make a recommendation to the legislature on whether to remove the Memphis DA. If removed, the governor will appoint a replacement to serve until the next election. 

“I reject the label of being a Soros DA,” Mulroy told Action News 5 back in February. But it’s hard to dismiss the parallels between his policies and the left-wing billionaire’s criminal justice reform agenda. “Causes”: that’s how Tayor refers to the nine topics of complaint he intends to bring before the committee. Based on the evidence he’s collected, the Shelby County senator plans to disclose how Mulroy has circumvented the law, neglected his duties, and deceived the public.

The cornerstone of Tayor’s accusations is Mulroy’s blatant dismissal of Tennessee law. The DA’s “abuse of prosecutorial discretion” is a recurring theme, and lightening punishments for felons is the tip of the iceberg. Instead of prosecuting criminal behavior based on the parameters set up by the state, Mulroy has repeatedly put his finger on the scale. In May,  while the Tennessee Attorney General was still actively defending a state law after being sued by Biden’s Department of Justice, Mulroy completely bypassed state leadership by entering into an unprecedented agreement with the DOJ. “So you’ve got another state actor doing an end run and reaching an agreement with the plaintiffs, undermining the state of Tennessee's case in court,” explained Taylor. 

Mulroy’s efforts to undercut the established system of justice are underscored by the diversity, equity, and inclusion overtures he makes at the expense of safety and efficiency. For starters, he has considered discriminatory prosecution practices to ensure that Shelby’s conviction rates match the racial makeup of the county—letting certain criminals off the hook. In the same vein, upon entering office, he fired a handful of qualified attorneys to hire a more diverse team. “Just listen to the criminal backgrounds of some of the people he's hired in his office,” said Taylor. “There are people there that have either been arrested or convicted of domestic violence, animal cruelty, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, DUIs, and suspension of a law license. And he had one ADA hired that didn't have a law license at all.”

But, perhaps the most egregious claims Taylor plans to bring before the committee are the instances where Mulroy has defended criminals at the expense of victims. Among them is the case of Michael Sample, a murderer convicted in the 1980s whose death sentence was vacated via petition in 2022 by contending he had an intellectual disability. “The victims’ families have been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for justice,” said Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti during a 2023 interview where he outlined a few of the blunders Mulroy’s office made in the case. Not only did the DA fail to conduct an independent investigation to verify the claims of intellectual disability brought forward by Sample’s defense team, his office failed to inform the victims’ families of the proceedings. “I had a long conversation with the victim's sister, and she was crying most of the time through that,” Skrmetti continued. “She said it was like he was killed all over again.”

Despite prior hangups, Taylor hopes the investigation results in Memphis becoming a safer place, one where businesses and families can thrive. “For a long time, the public has been talking about what it would take to remove DA Mulroy,” said Taylor at a press conference in June. “Even when Speaker Sexton, one time before, talked about the possibility of removing DA Mulroy, I did not engage in that because I did not think it was the right thing to do at that time. But we have continued to see crime escalate and get out of control. We continue to see the revolving door, and we can see the continued fact that there are no consequences for people committing crimes.”