Steve Mulroy Is Transforming Justice and Memphis Is Looking the Other Way

While I was incarcerated, I read Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelon. The book changed how I understood the extraordinary power of prosecutors.

Prosecutors decide whom to charge, what charges to bring, whether to offer a plea agreement, and how much punishment to pursue. These decisions can determine whether someone returns home or spends decades in prison.

Bazelon brought that power directly to Memphis through the case of Noura Jackson. Amy Weirich, who later became Shelby County District Attorney, was the lead prosecutor in Jackson’s murder trial. Jackson was convicted even though no forensic evidence connected her to the murder and the State’s case was entirely circumstantial. Jackson talked about the trauma she endured for how she was treated by Amy Weirich.

In 2014, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Jackson’s conviction. The court held that the prosecution improperly commented on Jackson’s constitutional right not to testify and violated due process by failing to disclose a key witness statement until after trial. The court concluded that the errors were not harmless and ordered a new trial. Weirich still refused to acknowledge that she may have the wrong person.

That was not an insignificant mistake. It was a constitutional failure in a case involving a person’s freedom. Steve Mulroy is willing to challenge an injustice and bring it before a judge to remedy that mistake. Thats refreshing from where we were since the 80s.

The racial consequences of Memphis’s punishment system are also impossible to ignore. A recent MLK50 investigation found that nearly 90% of Tennessee children convicted under the felony-murder rule from 1995 through 2019 were Black. More than 40% of those children were convicted in Shelby County. The data extended through 2019, during Weirich’s tenure, although much of the period also covered the administration before hers.

This is the prosecutorial culture Steve Mulroy inherited when Shelby County voters elected him in 2022.

Mulroy has received blame for people receiving bail, even though judges not district attorneys make the final decision about whether bail is granted and in what amount. He has been blamed for crime as though prosecutors control poverty, policing, guns, housing, education, mental-health services, and every other condition affecting public safety.

What has received far less attention is the work his office has actually undertaken.

Mulroy strengthened the Justice Review Unit to investigate wrongful convictions and unjust sentences. In 2024, the unit helped correct two wrongful convictions. During 2025, it opened 30 cases and closed 59. His office also launched the V11 initiative to prioritize serious violent crimes, created the CARS intervention program for young people involved in auto theft, expanded rehabilitation requirements through Meaningful Supervision, supported expungement clinics, increased victim services, and worked to eliminate evidence-processing backlogs.

In 2025, Shelby County’s reported overall crime declined by 16%, including a 21% reduction in violent crime. His office served more than 13,000 victims and handled more than 123,000 matters. Those numbers do not mean that Memphis has solved its public-safety challenges, but they certainly contradict the claim that Mulroy’s office is unconcerned with accountability.

The Andrew Hayes case demonstrates why a genuine conviction-review process matters. Mulroy’s prosecutors reviewed the case through the Justice Review Unit and concluded that an injustice should be corrected. Judge James Coffee has questioned whether prosecutors possess the legal authority to obtain that relief and has requested input from the Tennessee Attorney General.

But a prosecutor’s duty does not end when a conviction is entered. As former federal judge John Gleeson has explained, prosecutors do not lose their responsibility to correct injustice merely because the original prosecution is over. (By the way Judge Gleeson is top ten on my list for a trailblazer in the criminal reform space) Seeking to repair a wrongful conviction is not weakness. It is the highest expression of prosecutorial integrity.

Memphis is not leading some dangerous experiment. It is catching up.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins created a nationally recognized conviction-integrity program in 2007. Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson established a powerful Conviction Review Unit in 2014 that helped free numerous wrongfully convicted people. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner dramatically expanded his office’s Conviction Integrity Unit beginning in 2018. Cook County’s conviction review efforts have helped vacate hundreds of convictions connected to police misconduct.

Predominantly Black cities across America began confronting wrongful convictions and prosecutorial misconduct years before Memphis elected Mulroy. Reviewing questionable convictions, investing in diversion, supporting rehabilitation, and examining racial disparities are not radical ideas. They are basic responsibilities of a modern prosecutor’s office.

Steve Mulroy is not perfect, and no elected official should be beyond criticism. But criticism should be based on what he actually controls and what his office has actually done.

Memphis needed a hero badly not a hero who promises punishment at any cost, but one willing to look inside the system and admit when it has failed. Steve Mulroy may be the hidden gem Memphis does not fully appreciate yet.

I only hope the city recognizes what it has before it chooses another Amy Weirich. As a former incarcerated person thank you to DA Mulroy for your work and your courage. 13th Liberation Village honor your work