The MeidasTouch Podcast - Interview with Democratic Candidate for Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

This episode of The Mighty features our interview with Democratic Candidate for Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy. Shelby County includes the city of Memphis, among other incredible cities. Steve is running against a radical right-wing extremist Amy Weirich whose policies have been a disaster for the County. Learn more about Democratic Candidate for Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy here: https://www.stevemulroyforda.com/ Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to connect with thousands of singles worldwide. datemyage.com Hey there, this is Jordy Maizales, co-founder of Midas Touch, and you are listening to The Mighty. On today's Mighty, we feature our interview with Democrat Stephen Melroy, who's running for Shelby County, Tennessee,

District Attorney. Shelby County includes the city of Memphis, among other incredible cities. Now, Steve is running against a radical right-wing extremist, Amy Weirich, whose policies have been a disaster for the county. Amy engages in performative politics but has greatly harmed the people in her own county. Steve Mulroy is a former federal prosecutor and professor of law at the University of Memphis School of Law. This race is vitally important, and Stephen is the exact type of leader who can make a big difference in Shelby. Listen for yourself to our interview with Steve Moreau. Thank you.

You know, here are the Midas Touch podcast. We very frequently highlight candidates who are running for office at the federal level, you know, and sometimes even, you know, state level. are taking place in local races, like races for district attorney, where significant difference and change is being made depending on who holds that office. So it's an honor to bring in Stephen Mulroy, a former federal prosecutor, a professor over at University of Memphis, who is running for the Shelby County District Attorney, recently won the Democratic nomination back in May. He's running against somebody by the name of Amy Weirich, who's, let's just leave it at this, but I'll hear from Steve directly, whose policies and behavior have been downright horrible for the people of Memphis. Steve, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. Thank you all very much. So Steve, to our audience, you know, we have, I'm sure, lots of people who listen from the

Memphis area, but we've got an audience that spans the entire country. And they're saying, why is this race? Why is this district attorney's race in the Memphis area and Shelby County? Why is this important? What would you say to those people? It's a good question. And it has to do with the fact that the district attorney's office is, people don't understand just how powerful it is. It's the closest thing we have to a king in our system. One person gets really, really broad, almost untrammeled discretion over

virtually every decision in our criminal justice system, whether to charge or not to charge leniently or strictly what crimes to go after and prioritize what not should people be released pending trial or stick them with hard bail. Do we transfer juvenile defendants over to adult court or not? What plea deals to accept and on and on and on. Even more powerful than the judge is the prosecutor in our system. And it just so happens that in Memphis, we have a pretty good argument that we have the worst district attorney in the country. I mean, this is the poster child for mass incarceration and racially disproportionate outcomes in our criminal justice system. Harvard Law School did a study a few years ago focusing

on maybe the four worst states and uh this office won the dubious honor of having in tennessee the most convictions overturned for prosecutorial misconduct so we're talking about not sharing evidence of innocence when you're required to making improper comments to the jury when you're not supposed to when it comes to prosecutorial ethics we're the worst we're the worst when it comes to transferring young adults over to adult prison, 95% of whom are Black. We do more of that in one county than all other counties in Tennessee combined. We have a very, very powerful position in the 23rd largest metro area in the country. We have probably the worst VA in the country who's been in power for

12 years. It's also an eight year sentence. I mean, sentence, I should say that it's an eight year term. So there's a lot at stake in this election, which is probably why it's gotten so much national attention, which I could tell you about in a minute. Yeah, you know, and it's one of those things where you have this, you know, it probably feels like a 12 year sentence having Amy Weirich in charge. But, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, she uses this I'm for the police rhetoric, you know, I'm tough on crime. But

actually her policies, when you really break it down, has harmed the police, has increased crime by 40 percent. And it's kind of this difference between this, you know, tough person rhetoric and actually doing because her policies have been an utter failure. Have they not? Well, I absolutely correct. And your 40 percent figure is right on the money. You guys have done your homework, which is what you usually do, from what I understand. Violent crime was actually going down in the three years before she took over in 2011. And their own statistics show that it was rising steadily ever since, virtually almost every year to the point where we're now just not number one in the state, but we're number one or two, depending on how you measure it in the country, for violent crime. So what she's been doing obviously hasn't been working and we need change. There was a great

Huffington Post article about this race just last week, which talked about the fact that she talks tough about crime, but crime is soaring. And she goes on and on about, you know, how she all cares about the victims, but it depends. Some victims she cares about more than others. So, for example, the Huff Post article was talking about if the suspects of the accused were police officers, then she has a record of going very, very easy on them. In fact, a couple of months ago, we got national attention, international attention, really. The Guardian picked it up once again for the case of an African-American woman named Pam Moses, who was told by probation office that even though she had a prior conviction, she could now vote. And when she tried to register, it turns out she was told the wrong information. Weirich went after her, got a six-year prison sentence for doing this in the same month that a white deputy sheriff who confessed to repeatedly raping a 14-year-old girl

got a plea deal with no jail time. So I think you're right, Ben, to say that what she's doing has not been helping with crime. It's not been making us safer. And it's also shown a disturbing pattern of favoritism where she cares about some victims more than others. You know, my view personally about why this has captured the national attention is also that it's kind of a model for where our justice system could be going, because in other areas, as other district attorneys start modeling themselves after Amy Weirich, you kind of have that, in theory, how is this radical right extremist MAGA agenda that really removes the rights from the people and frankly thrusts upon people big government in the most horrible ways. How does that look?

It looks like Amy Weirich. And so the stakes here to me are this could be a microcosm of what we see repeat itself in other areas as well. Is that something that you think is what's driving national attention? Are there other factors? No, I mean, I think you put the nail on the head there, Ben, you know, for a past decade or more, there's been this progressive DA movement, the reform prosecutor movement, you know, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia led the way and there've been, you know, many others since then.

And there's a big debate going on because now there's a conservative backlash to that, right? And so they're trying to push back in DAs who are stuck in the 1950s, lock them up, throw away the key mentality, which doesn't really work, but it certainly can maybe sound good to some people. And I think the right is trying to use the Chase of Odin recall in San Francisco to say, ah, see, the reform prosecutor movement was a failure. The voters rejected it decisively. We need to go back to, you know, lock them up and throw away the key. So I think that's why one reason why this race is important, you know, a victory here would, I think, you know, send the message that the reform prosecutor movement is still alive and kicking. And, you know, I think that's why it's gotten such attention. You know, just today, Brian Tyler Cohen tweeted about the race. Just today, John Legend

published an article in USA Today, which mentioned me and the race. Barry Sheck from the National Innocence Project, one of the original OJ Simpson Dream Team defense persons. He's very big on board. So I think it's all tied up in this national debate about whether we want reform or whether we want to go back to the 1950s when it comes to criminal justice. You know, Steve, I just feel like a lot of people at this point are just so frustrated by the utter lawlessness that we're seeing from the right across the country. And you know about this firsthand. I mean, the current DA has been reported on numerous times in books and newspapers like the New York Times for her own prosecutorial misconduct,

ethical violations, things like not disclosing evidence when she was supposed to making improper comments to the jury. And her sloppiness doesn't just run counter to the law. It results in convictions being overturned and criminals actually ending up back on the streets. Right. So how do you if you were to win this race, how do you actually restore public trust after all these years of this sort of unethical behavior? Well, again, you put your finger on it. It's restoring public confidence that seems to be job one for me, because it seems to me that right now, when you have a complete lack of confidence in the fairness of our justice system here in Shelby County, because of what you just articulated, particularly among the African-American community, then the community doesn't cooperate with law enforcement. They

don't provide tips. They don't serve as witnesses. They don't report crimes. And that's really the only way we're going to bend the curve on violent crime in this county and I think nationwide as well. And so that's why the reform is so important, because it's good in its own right, right? It makes the system fairer. But I also think that it helps to restore public confidence and help us with the real crimes, the crimes that we really need to be focused on. And obviously we have a lot of crimes that we're seeing day in and day out. And part of those crimes, a lot of those crimes involve guns. Gun safety right now is one of the biggest issue of our times. So how do you as DA, how do you handle the gun epidemic in our country? Right. So, you know, a lot of this is about the fact that we need sensible gun safety regulations.

And unfortunately, right now I'm in a red state that has been over the last decade, little by little, pulling off all of the restrictions on access to guns. You know, we almost lowered the age down to 18 for access to assault weapons. It's crazy here in Tennessee. How do we do it? Well, it just so happens that there's a statewide organization called the District Attorney's General Conference, which is extremely influential with the legislature in Nashville on anything having to do with criminal justice or guns, broadly defined. And the Shelby County DA, because it's the biggest county in Tennessee, is extremely influential within that organization.

So I think that flipping this seat and putting me into the DA's conference would allow me to help moderate the DA's conference, which in turn could help moderate the legislature and get us on the path away from the NRA and more towards sensible gun safety legislation, which we desperately need here in Tennessee. But of course, as I think you've pointed out, we need on federal level as well. Yeah, absolutely. And you've been at the front of all of these major issues. I think it's important to let all of our listeners know that on the very first day that marriage

equality became law, you as county commissioner at the time officiated the weddings of LGBTQ couples. So tell us about that. And how do you plan to protect the rights of LGBTQ Americans? Great question. Thank you very much. I'm very proud to say that when I was a county commissioner, I authored and passed the first piece of legislation at any level anywhere in the state of Tennessee that provided protection for LGBTQ persons. And as you pointed out, I was very proud to officiate the first same-sex wedding, at least in West Tennessee. We're not sure about the timing, maybe in Tennessee, but it's certainly West Tennessee. And I had a lot of fun with it because, you know, at the end, I said, by the power invested in me by the state of Tennessee, the county of Shelby, then I turned

and looked at the crowd and I said, and by the U.S. Supreme Court. And then this huge cheer went up, you know, and I now pronounce you wife and wife and, you know, champagne popped. And it was a really nice memory. If you get a progressive DA in there, there's a lot of things that you can do. So for one thing, you know, we've got a real problem with violence against trans people. It's not really being prosecuted as hate crimes. That needs to change.

You didn't mention it, but I'll also mention, you know, the immigrant community as well. A progressive prosecutor can make charging decisions in such a way that they don't have untoward collateral immigration consequences. And that's something that it takes a little bit of sophistication in immigration law and a little sensitivity to the needs of the immigrant community in order to do that. And so it's things like this. It's being sensitive to the LGBT community, the immigrant community, you know, the need for racial diversity in our office. You know, we have 90 we have 90 percent white prosecutors and 90 percent black defendants in our county. It's really crazy. And there's a lot of interesting things happening in Shelby County and also in regards to voting.

Voting rights is obviously a big issue right now. And while you're not running for secretary of state as DA, you would be responsible for prosecuting crimes related to voting in the area. And one of the things that I noticed is that in Shelby County, despite all those claims about dominion, this and smartmatic that it seems like Republicans are pushing for new machines while Democrats and you could correct me

if I'm wrong, Democrats like yourself are urging for the commission to stick to handmark paper ballots. If you could just explain that dynamic to us, that seems to flip everything on its head. You guys really do your homework, don't you? Like that's pretty in the weeds. We don't mess around. We don't mess around. We're not the top podcast for nothing. We're not just that. All right.

All hail. That's, that's pretty amazing. Yeah. It's, it's the weirdest thing because the grassroots hard, right. All hail. That's that's pretty amazing. Yeah. It's it's the weirdest thing because the grassroots hard right Republicans, you know, since 2020 have been, you know, politics makes strange bedfellows. Allied with the progressive grassroots activists who for years have been saying we need to have election integrity and election security. And most experts, computer security experts, will tell you that the best system for that is hand-marked paper ballots where each voter marks the voter themselves, you know, with the number two pencil, whatever, and then sticks the Scantron into the scan machine. So you've got an electronic and a paper record that cross each other. Two-thirds of U.S. voters use that system. It's used in over 35

states. You know, it is the trend. It is the what security experts say should be the case. And and the Democratic controlled county commissioner in Shelby County was convinced of that and has been pushing for it and saying that's what we want to fund. But for reasons that boggle the mind, the Republican controlled election commission has been pushing for computerized voting machines, which are way more expensive. So there goes fiscal conservatism out the window. We're paying more money to be less secure. I don't understand what's going on, but it really is an odd conundrum because I can find common ground in looking for hand-marked paper ballot for election security. But the powers that be in the Republican Party here, some reason don't like that. So mind-blowing after these months and months and months of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, smartmatic machines. It's just so wild to me. Another topic

before I hand the mic over to Jordi I want to talk about is workers. Union workers are very important to us here at Midas Touch, and we try to highlight them frequently. And you yourself have showed a big support for workers and unions and have suggested creating a workplace justice unit to fight crimes and exploitation against these workers. What would that actually look like in practice? And do we see successful examples of that already in any other cities? Yeah, there have been a couple of other prosecutors that have set up those kinds of units. So it's not completely unprecedented. We already have an economic crime unit within the Shelby County District Attorney's Office, but it mostly focuses on government fraud or defrauding corporations. Seems to me that there's no reason why a reformed

district attorney couldn't use the same tools to protect the exploitation of workers. We have a huge wage theft problem here in Shelby County, as you know, we do around the country. We have another real problem with job misclassification. So large employers insisting that people be classified as independent contractors rather than employees, which is what they really are. And when that happens, it hurts us in three different ways. Obviously, it exploits the workers, but it also defrauds the government because they're not paying into unemployment compensation and all these things, right? And then it also hurts legitimate businesses, right? Because it gives an unfair competitive advantage to the lawbreakers, right? So there are legitimate businesses out there that are trying to do right by their workers. Believe it or not, there are some of

them and they're at a competitive disadvantage. Now, the other side might say, well, let the Federal Department of Labor handle that. But they're understaffed and they usually go after only the really big cases. You can say, oh, well, let private civil tort suits handle that. But with all these arbitration clauses nowadays, it's very hard to get relief just by hiring a lawyer. Most of these workers aren't sophisticated enough to do that. So what would it look like to have the local prosecutor actually stick up for these workers and make this a prosecution priority? I mean, obviously, violent crime has to be job one. But if we've got time to help out corporations that are being defrauded, we've got time to help out workers, too.

And Steve, I think this this whole interview, you've already answered my question, but I just want to ask it a little bit more pointedly now. Now, why, in your opinion, is it so important that people focus on these elections at the local level, especially as we head into the midterms? Yeah, yeah, no, you're absolutely, it's a good question. You know, somebody listening to your podcast in, you know, Alaska or something, why should I care about DA in Shelby County? I think there are three or four things that make this particular race unique, and it might be emblematic of your more general question as to why we should look at local races. In terms of the day-to-day life, local government really is what changes the day-to-day experience of people, right? It could never be more true with a district attorney who has got so much power. You know, even a mayor needs to get seven votes, or I'm sorry, a majority of votes on the city council to get stuff done. Legislators, even at

the high level, they have to coordinate with everybody else. The DA is just one person. You change this one office and you can transform the entire criminal justice system because that one DA has got so much broad, really uncheckable power. And this one is unique in that it's eight years. We're the only state in the country that has an eight-year term. So, you know, you're getting double on your investment if you're going to donate to move from the poster child for mass incarceration and racially disproportionate outcomes and prosecutorial misconduct and swap it out for somebody, you know, who at least says that they'll try to make a priority for things like worker rights

and immigrant rights and LGBTQ rights and, you know, honest reform and racial fairness, it really could be transformative. And it could be another exhibit in the case for the reform prosecutor movement. And moving away from our mass incarceration society, where we're 5% of the global population and 25% of the incarcerated population. Steve, when's the election? The election is August 4th. Early voting starts July 15th. So we're starting to get into the home stretch now. What could people do who want to support you or where do they go? Oh, thank you for that question. I was going to try to shoehorn it in if I had to.

So the website is www.stevemulroy.com. That's Steve. And my last name is M-U-L-R-O-Y, stevemulroy.com. And we need donations of any amount. You know, the polling looks pretty good. The demographics of the county look pretty good. The one thing that doesn't look good is the coffers because she's got a huge war chest of half a million dollars. And I had to spend in my primary. So, you know, we're we're it's a little bit of a David Goliath when it comes to the money. But, you know, with people like you putting the word out, I think we're we can do this.

We can flip this seat. Pay attention, Midas Mighty, to this race in Shelby County. Pay attention to this interview with Steve Maroy, all the great things that he's done already in his career and what he wants to bring to Shelby County and pay attention to your district attorney races in your communities as well. As we also pay attention to the other state and federal elections, Steve Maroy, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. This was great. You guys really know your stuff.

Very impressive. All I can say is we try. We'll be right back after these messages. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life, but you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that

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Feel free in that five-star review that you're going to give the podcast to let everybody know you could actually write this in your review, that I, Jordy, am your favorite brother. Trust me, trust me, they won Trust me. They won't care. They won't care. Okay, cool. And thanks to Stephen LaRoy for that great interview and really sharing that perspective. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Mighty. Make sure to subscribe to the Midas Touch Podcast channel now and text a friend about it or two friends or 10 friends. Sky's the limit. And while you're at it, why don't you check out store.midastouch.com. That's store.m-e-i-d-a-s-t-o-u-c-h.com for the best official Midas Touch merch gear.

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