State Sen. Brent Taylor Lists 9 Reasons for Tennessee Lawmakers to Remove Memphis D.A. Steve Mulroy

Steve Mulroy

State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) on Thursday listed nine reasons he argues the Tennessee General Assembly should remove Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy in a press conference that lasted over an hour.

Taylor began by noting the process for the General Assembly to remove a District Attorney has been used twice in the last two decades, both times resulting in the resignation of the public official, before confirming he will provide his nine reasons for removal to lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session. The senator alleged:

  1.  Mulroy circumvents the General Assembly’s authority by ignoring or selectively enforcing laws
  2.  Mulroy abuses his prosecutorial discretion by using it to create blanket policies for specific crimes
  3. Mulroy fails to seek court fines that contribute to Tennessee’s Criminal Injury Compensation Fund
  4. Mulroy engages in race-based prosecution
  5. Mulroy unethically and unlawfully colludes with judges
  6. Mulroy abandoned his adversarial role as prosecutor by agreeing to the commutation of a death sentence for a twice-convicted murderer
  7. Mulroy fails to inform crime victims when inmates may have sentences reduced or probation granted
  8. Mulroy engages in questionable management practices and abuses financial resources within his offices.
  9. Mulroy claimed not to have documents other agencies said exist in response to a freedom of information request

He told members of the press that he did not initially intend to move forward with nine reasons for removal, and initially sought to remove Mulroy due to an alleged disregard for state law after the district attorney proposed diverting the sentences of felons caught with a firearm.

However, Taylor said he was overwhelmed with the public’s response after he sought comments about alleged wrongdoings in Mulroy’s office.

Taylor said his second cause for removal relates to an internal document he said Mulroy created last July, which announced, “his office will discontinue the practice of sending out standard, automatic parole opposition letters to Murder 1 cases, and that the office’s default going forward would be no position.”

By making a “categorical, blanket policy” on how his office will respond to parole requests from first-degree murderers, Taylor argued Mulroy, “is violating his prosecutorial discretion.”

In his third cause, Taylor argued Mulroy was indirectly harming the Tennessee Department of Treasury’s ability to assist the victims of crimes and obtain forensic examinations after sexual assaults through November 2023 notice that he would waive court fines and fees from low-income individuals.

“Those fines and fees, they fund the Criminal Injury Compensation Fund, which is commonly known as the victims compensation fund, but also funds the sexual assault forensic examination fund,” said Taylor.

Paradoxically, the state senator noted, “Mulroy, in a social media post, indicated he wanted to increase the victim compensation fund while at the same time making sure that the revenue stream that funds that is diminished.”

For his fourth cause for removal, Taylor referenced a June 2024 interview where Mulroy highlighted “racial disparities in the system” in response to a survey finding white people were less likely to be charged with crimes than black people.

In his fifth cause of removal, Taylor accused Mulroy of, “illegally and unethically colludes with judges,” specifically referencing the abortive release of Courtney Anderson, who a Tennessee appeals court ruled was illegally freed from his 162-year prison sentence in 2022. The decision was reversed and Anderson was placed back behind bars.

The Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct reprimanded Judge Paula Skahan, who presided over the ill-fated release, and reportedly colluded with Mulroy’s office to “try and do something” about Anderson’s confinement.

At his press conference, Taylor also revealed he filed a complaint against Mulroy with the Board of Professional Responsibility, and stated that there is a pending reprimand targeting the district attorney.

“He has a pending reprimand, that rather than accepting the reprimand, I believe he is asking for a disciplinary hearing,” said Taylor. “The reason I know that is because I spoke to assistant district attorneys who worked on that case that said he’s trying to get affidavits from them to fight this pending reprimand. This is yet another example of him not following the law.”

Similarly, Taylor argued the sixth cause for removal against Mulroy came after the district attorney, “abandoned his adversarial role as prosecutor by agreeing to the commutation of a death sentence for a twice-convicted murderer,” in the case of Michael Sample, who was convicted of two murders in the 1980s. Taylor noted Mulroy did not oppose the commutation of Sample’s death sentence to life in prison.

The seventh cause raised by Taylor similarly involved Mulroy’s involvement in the Sample case, but specifically accused the district attorney of failing to inform Sample’s victims of the developments in the case.

According to Taylor, these family members remained intimately involved in the legal proceedings during the decades after Sample’s conviction, but following Mulroy’s election were not informed the killer was eligible to have his sentence commuted, then had to plead with the district attorney to oppose parole.

Despite Mulroy promising to oppose parole when the convicted killer became eligible last year, Taylor said at this press conference that a freedom of information request found no evidence the district attorney opposed the decision.

“That family met with D.A. Mulroy and he promised them that he would send a letter of opposition, despite what his policy was, only to find out that D.A. Mulroy was dishonest with them and never sent the letter that he promised them he was sending,” said Taylor.

For his eighth cause for removal, Taylor highlighted a series of alleged financial and technological mismanagement within the district attorney’s office.

The state senator listed, “They have expert witnesses that have not been paid going back to cases from the middle of last year. They’ve got an off-site storage company, Iron Mountain, that keeps a lot of paper records, that they have not been timely on their payments there, and have been denied access to those records. In those records are the contact information that they need to comply with the law to let crime victims know that their cases are coming up.”

He added that cell phone bills also go unpaid, resulting in the loss of service, before claiming that Mulroy’s employees are sometimes forced to use personal credit cards to pay for the victims of crimes who live outside Memphis to return to the city in order to testify.

“When a credit card gets maxed out and they don’t pay it, then individual staff, employees of the D.A.’s office, are putting victims’ travel expenses on their personal credit cards to get crime victims back here, and having to seek reimbursement from the D.A.’s office,” said Taylor.

He also accused Mulroy engaging in “race-based hiring decisions,” specifically citing an October 2022 article by The Commercial Appeal, when Mulroy highlighted the diversity of his new hires. .

“I’m pleased that I hired experienced, qualified, diverse group of attorneys who share my vision for criminal justice reform. That was the goal always. I’m pleased that so far I’ve been able to achieve it,” said the district attorney in the 2022 article. “As a group they are significantly more diverse than the staff as a whole, so I’m making good on my promise to increase the diversity of the office.”

Taylor also said Mulroy’s office created a flyer for use a job fairs that contains the allegedly discriminatory statement, “Because we’re an equal opportunity employer, we are particularly interested in candidates who will increase diversity of all kinds throughout our office.”

According to Taylor, labor attorneys warned him the language, “is blatantly illegal.”

The state senator’s ninth cause for removal involves the district attorney’s alleged failure to respond to freedom of information requests, as Taylor says Mulroy questioned the state senator’s authority to file such a request, then specifically claimed to have no records referencing communications with state or federal agencies about grant funding, while Taylor obtained confirmation from such agencies that these records exist.

In a statement posted to social media after the press conference, Mulroy called Taylor’s causes for removal “untrue and vague,” and argued he has successfully lowered crime in Shelby County.

Taylor first revealed his plans to oust Mulroy from office in June 2024, when he said “not a single person pushed back” as he discussed the idea with other Tennessee lawmakers.

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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Steve Mulroy” by Steve Mulroy. 

 

 

 

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