Shelby County Republicans advance bills targeting handling of Memphis Safe Task Force cases

Republican state lawmakers from Shelby County advanced two bills this week targeting the handling of court cases that result from arrests made by President Donald Trump’s Memphis federal task force.

The Memphis Safe Task Force, a collaboration between several state and federal agencies and National Guard members tasked with targeting violent street crime, has made more than 7,300 arrests and issued nearly 18,000 traffic citations since it launched in late September. 

President Donald Trump and several members of his administration visited Memphis Monday to meet with Tennessee leaders and commend the task force as a model for Trump’s nationwide “Make America Safe Again” objectives.

Tennessee Sen. Brent Taylor, an outspoken supporter of the task force who represents parts of Memphis, did not attend the event.

Instead, Taylor appeared in the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee to push his “Memphis Safe Task Force Accountability Act,” which would require district attorneys to notify multiple state and federal officials when certain cases arising from the task force lead to a plea agreement, lowered charge or dismissal.

Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy said that the bill would create an unnecessary paperwork burden for his staff, diverting time away from other tasks such as investigating, preparing for trial and helping victims.

Taylor amended the bill Monday, extending the reporting deadline from 24 hours to a week. The bill’s latest iteration also limits the reporting requirement to certain “serious offenses,” including several murder, homicide and manslaughter charges, felony firearm and drug offenses, sexual offenses, felony theft, organized retail crime, and gang-related or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) crimes. The reporting requirement would end June 30, 2028.

Taylor conceded that his original bill was “too broad” and said he worked with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference to rein it in.

“The reason it’s important is because most of these arrests … only probably 25% of them will be tried in federal court,” Taylor said. If a charge is dismissed at the state level, the U.S. attorney may be able to prosecute it at the federal level if there is a federal connection, he added. 

“Currently, unless the DA makes that disclosure, the U.S. Attorney would not know that the case has been dropped,” Taylor said.

Taylor said the legislation does not “restrict the DA’s discretion” when dealing with these cases, and that the disclosure rule would apply to any district attorney who receives a case from the Memphis Safe Task Force, acknowledging that the Shelby County district attorney would shoulder the vast majority of non-federal cases.

Taylor has repeatedly accused Mulroy of being soft on crime, filing multiple ethics complaints against Mulroy that were ultimately dismissed by the state’s ethics board. 

In a statement posted to social media Monday, Mulroy said the bill would “apply just to me,” and noted there is no automated way to separate task force cases from other cases handled by his office. Staff would have to do so manually.

“This isn’t about transparency,” Mulroy said. “It’s not about accountability. It’s just extra paperwork for political reasons.”

The bill passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee and moves to the Senate floor. Rep. John Gillespie, a Memphis Republican, is sponsoring the House version of the bill, which passed in the House’s Criminal Justice Subcommittee on Wednesday. It heads to the House’s full Judiciary Committee.

While Mulroy said he hopes the bill will fail, should it ultimately pass, “we’ll comply with it, because we comply with the law,” he said.

Bill would bring additional criminal court judges to Shelby County

Taylor is also sponsoring the “Violent Criminal Court Act” alongside Rep. Rick Scarbrough, an Oak Ridge Republican. The bill would add two new criminal court judges, four assistant district attorneys and two criminal investigators in Shelby County, specifically focusing on violent crimes. 

The bill passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday and will next be heard by the Senate’s finance committee. 

“These additional judges, prosecutors, and investigators will make a big difference in clearing cases,” Taylor posted on his Facebook page, citing the roughly 7,400 arrests made by the Memphis Safe Task Force. “Now we’re making sure every one of them faces real justice. We need high-quality criminal court judges who won’t accept overly cushy plea deals made by our Soros-backed district attorney,” referring to Mulroy.

Taylor has accused Mulroy, who was elected in 2022, of receiving campaign contributions from billionaire George Soros, who donates to progressive causes. Mulroy has rejected this claim. 

Mulroy’s campaign finance documents show no monetary donations from Soros. A political action committee called People for Fairness and Justice, which has received donations from Soros, made independent expenditures supporting Mulroy, something Mulroy said he had no knowledge of, since legal restrictions prohibit coordination between PACs and campaigns.

Mulroy’s office is handling more than 90% of the cases resulting from the Memphis Safe Task Force, he wrote in a March 20 newsletter. These cases are treated the same as every other case, he stated.

“Our prosecutors touch over 1,000 cases every week. Just this year — since January — we have convicted well over 1,000 defendants, and handed out almost 4,000 years in prison sentences,” Mulroy stated. “This is more than any other DA’s office in the state, more than the federal prosecutors in our county (all of whom do good work).”

Mulroy previously told The Lookout that a “large percentage” of the task force cases have involved lower-level misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes. A “minority” have been violent cases, with some of the more serious cases stemming from an existing backlog of outstanding warrants that the task force has assisted local law enforcement in clearing.

Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, voted in support of Taylor’s bill to add judges in Shelby County, saying it fixes a “reckless decision” made by the legislature in 2024. Legislation passed that year eliminated one division of the circuit court and one division of the criminal court in Shelby County.

“It was already understood that we were already short in the first place, and we voted to take those judges away, understanding we already had a very overburdened court system. And now we have to fix the problem,” she said.

Taylor said that decision was made with the understanding that if a forthcoming report from the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office showed a deficiency in the Shelby County district, the legislature would support bringing judges back to the county.

“That’s why I’m bringing this,” he said.

The Comptroller’s Office released its 2026 Tennessee Judicial Weighted Caseload Study Update in February, which showed deficits in 25 of the state’s 32 judicial districts, including Shelby County’s district.