WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): The Tennessee General Assembly has gotten off to a frosty start this year, but even as it began, lawmakers from Shelby County have lined up their priorities for the season. Two local lawmakers, State Sen. Brent Taylor and Rep. John Gillespie have focused on the crime problem. They want to ensure that arrests made by the Memphis Safe Task Force lead to strong prosecutions. With us to talk about a proposed bill is Mike Carpenter, principal with Carpenter Civic Strategies. Welcome back.
MIKE CARPENTER: Thanks, Christopher.
BLANK: Well, the Memphis Safe Task Force Accountability Act would require that whenever the Shelby County DA's office enters a plea deal, reduces or dismisses the charges, a report has to be sent to various levels of state government within 24 hours. Mike, what was the impetus for this bill?
CARPENTER: Well, I think that this is an extension of Sen.Taylor's efforts to remove District Attorney [Steve] Mulroy from office. He had promised his constituents for nearly two years that he was going to remove Mulroy, intimated that he had the votes, and then in the end was unable to do that. So I think that this is really an extension of that and an effort to create some "evidence" -- and I'll use the term loosely -- to reinvigorate that effort.
BLANK: District Attorney General Steve Mulroy has said that on a national level, about 90% of criminal cases end with some sort of settlement, like a plea deal. And certainly here in a court system that is now dealing with more than 4,000 arrests by the task force, it would be impossible to take every case to trial. Mulroy says this reporting would be "incredibly burdensome." So besides adding more work to our DA's office, what would these reports accomplish?
CARPENTER: Well, I don't think much other than providing some percentages that Sen. Taylor could then take and say, "Look, our DA pleaded X percentage of cases." And also, the thing I think that this bill does is it puts a premium on Memphis Safe Task Force arrests over other arrests. You know, if the Memphis Safe Task Force arrests somebody for homicide and a beat officer or sheriff's deputy arrests somebody for homicide, it's a homicide and needs to be investigated and treated similarly. So, these cases by the Memphis Safe Task Force aren't any higher priority or any more important where individuals are arrested by officers not involved in the task force.
BLANK: Well, as with everything in a state with a Republican supermajority, this bill will be decided by Republicans. And I wonder what are the chances of this passing? Are Republicans -- do they believe this idea that Shelby County needs this level of oversight on a state level because not enough people are getting the book thrown at them?
CARPENTER: Yeah, I think this is more of a political issue because because of all the rhetoric around the Memphis Safe Task Force -- Memphis being the example of where the Trump Administration has sent this task force, sent the guard, and crime is going down. I think nobody in the legislature on the Republican side wants to look like that they're anti-Trump administration, anti-law enforcement, or anti-lower crime. And this is how sort of the rhetoric has spun all of this. So, I think there's a really good chance that this bill does pass, but I think what you're going to see as D.A. Mulroy has said is it's going to be another burdensome requirement on his office that already handles 40,000 cases. And yeah, so I think that there's a good chance that it passes, but with no real benefit to the public.