Steve Mulroy defeats Harris, White to become Democratic nominee for district attorney general

University of Memphis Professor Steve Mulroy, a former civil rights lawyer and federal prosecutor, will be the Democratic nominee for Shelby County District Attorney General, defeating opponents Linda Harris and Janika White in Monday's primary.

“I’m really glad this part is over with and I’m looking forward to a robust general election campaign," Mulroy said Tuesday night. "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.”

Mulroy will face incumbent Amy Weirich in the August 4 general election. Weirich, a Republican, was unchallenged in her primary. She has held office as Shelby County District attorney since being appointed to the role by then-Gov. Bill Haslam in 2011.

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Mulroy received 22,123 votes (46%) to White's 15,876 (33%) and Harris' 10,055 (21%), according to unofficial vote totals from the Shelby County Election Commission. Only about 10.8% of Shelby County's 582,421 registered voters cast a ballot during the primary.

Mulroy 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.

From 2006 to 2014, Mulroy was a Shelby County commissioner. He has also served on the board of the Memphis Bar Association.

The race between the three Democrats focused largely on attacking Weirich, with each of the Democrats arguing that they were best positioned to take on the incumbent Republican.

Mulroy, Harris and White often agreed on policy: That they would focus on violent crime, decrease juvenile transfer, create a conviction review unit and seek bail reform.

That left much of the debate centered on which of the candidates had the most — or most pertinent — experience to hold the role of district attorney general, and who was most likely to defeat Weirich in the general election.

Harris has 15 years of experience as a federal prosecutor and also previously worked as a federal judicial law clerk to the late U.S. District Court Judge Jerome Turner and as a private practice constitutional law and civil rights attorney. She also had worked as a Memphis police officer.

White is an attorney at Bailey, Bailey, & White PLLC. She previously served as a judicial law clerk to then-Chancellor Kenny Armstrong of the Shelby County Chancery Court, clerked for Bernice Bouie Donald, who at the time was a U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Tennessee.

Supporters of Mulroy included Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, former County Mayor Joe Ford, City Councilman Jeff Warren, Criminal Court Clerk Heidi Kuhn, former State Rep. Johnnie Turner, former State Rep. Jeanne Richardson, Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner, Shelby County Commissioner Reginald Milton, Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert and AFL-CIO Labor Council President Irvin Calliste.

The district attorney general oversees a staff of more than 200, about half of whom are prosecutors.

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 wins Democratic nomination for Shelby County District Attorney