Steve Mulroy will challenge Incumbent District Attorney Amy Weirich in August election
Attorney and University of Memphis Professor Steve Mulroy will face incumbent Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich in August, after Mulroy defeated his two Democratic opponents in Tuesday's primary.
Weirich, a Republican, went unchallenged in her primary and has strong support both from Republicans and from moderate Democrats like Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland who emphasize tough-on-crime policies.
Appointed to the role of Shelby County District Attorney General by then-Gov. Bill Haslam in 2011, Weirich easily won election in 2012 and reelection to a full eight-year term in 2014.
Mulroy has previously held elected office, as Shelby County Commissioner from 2006 to 2014. He has been on the law faculty at the University of Memphis since 2000, teaching constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, civil rights and election law, according to the school's website. He is a former civil rights lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department and a former federal prosecutor. He tried a number of voting rights cases which went to the Supreme Court, multi-million dollar lending discrimination and redlining cases, and bench and jury criminal cases before federal district courts and U.S. Circuit appellate courts, according to his biography at the University of Memphis' website.
“I’m really glad this part is over with and I’m looking forward to a robust general election campaign," Mulroy said. "We can’t keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them. It’s time for a change. (The voters) need to keep an open mind about new approaches that have been proven to work in other cities to make the system fairer and also bend the curb on violent crime.”
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During his campaign, Mulroy portrayed himself as an opposing force to Weirich, someone who would focus on violent crime and enact progressive policies and programs like bail reform and a conviction review unit. He has also advocated for diversity in the district attorney's office, holding a press conference during the primary to blast Weirich's office for a lack of diversity among assistant district attorneys and often pointing out the disproportionate impact of juvenile transfers to adult court on Black youth.
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The first woman to hold the role of district attorney general in Shelby County, Weirich had previously been deputy district attorney — also the first woman in that job. Before that, she was chief prosecutor of the gang and narcotics prosecution unit and division leader for the special prosecution unit in criminal court. She joined the district attorney’s office in 1991 as a courtroom prosecutor, working her way up the ranks.
Her time in office has included advocacy for "truth in sentencing" laws, which would require certain offenders to serve the entirety of their sentences rather than receiving parole for good behavior, and establishing vertical prosecution, a system that allows for one prosecutor and team to work with a case from start to finish.
After Mulroy's win, Weirich said she wanted to comment his Democratic opponents Linda Harris and Janika White for their "strong campaigns."
"Professor Mulroy on the other hand has run one of the most dishonest campaigns we’ve seen in Shelby County in a while. He’s lied about my record, he’s lied about this office and, most importantly, he’s lied about what his intentions are if he’s elected as district attorney," Weirich said, adding that Mulroy wants to defund law enforcement and advocates the "freeing of all violent criminals from jail."
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Mulroy has said that he wants to focus prosecution on violent crime, shifting the focus of prosecution away from victimless crimes such as drug possession and prostitution. He has not advocated releasing violent criminals from jail.
Despite strong support from many in Shelby County, Weirich's years in office have been shadowed by misconduct, some of which date back to her time as a prosecutor on the high-profile Noura Jackson case, for which she received a private reprimand. Jackson's second-degree murder conviction was thrown out, with Jackson entering an Alford plea on a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter in 2015.
Other criticism is ongoing, as with the case of transfers of juvenile youth to adult court, with the Department of Justice blasting Shelby County in for transferring more youth to adult court than any other county in Tennessee, with a disproportionate number of them being Black.
And, Weirich's office has become known around the nation for failing to turn over evidence to the defense, in the Jackson trial, for a document not being handed over in Pamela Moses' voter registration trial (Weirich's office said it was the Tennessee Department of Corrections that failed to turn over the document), and for an envelope with unknown contents found in the Vern Braswell case.
That record of misconduct has been used by Mulroy to attack Weirich in the primary, and is likely to become even heightened rhetoric leading up to the general election even as Weirich is expected to portray Mulroy as soft on crime and out of touch with Memphians impacted by violence.
Katherine Burgess covers county government and religion. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Steve Mulroy, Amy Weirich to vie for Shelby County District Attorney General
