MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy and Mayor Lee Harris announced new efforts Thursday to prevent dangerous criminals from getting out on low bond, only to re-offend, which often times ends in tragedy.
It’s something Memphis mother Brittney Ireland knows all too well.
Court records show 21-year-old Kendrick Ray was booked and released on a $500 dollar bond for owning a Glock Switch in 2023. Ray was one of two people arrested and charged in a road rage shooting on I-240 that sent Ireland’s four young children to the hospital with life-changing injuries in June.
In an effort to prevent more incidents like this, Harris and Mulroy believe one solution is easier access to information with updated paperwork so that judicial commissioners in charge of setting the bail amount can make the best decision possible.
The bail-setting form that judicial commissioners have been using shows how many misdemeanors and felonies a person has been charged with, but not much else.
“It is possible for the judicial commissioners to find out that more detailed information orally over the phone by calling pretrial services,” Mulroy said.
“So now it all makes sense why there is so much crime going on,” Ireland said when learning about how little information is given. “Because they don't know what's been going on in their past history.”
Mulroy said he wants judicial commissioners, the people responsible for setting these bonds, to have as much information as possible readily available when determining bail amounts. Especially with Memphians’ concerns over repeat offenders being arrested again and again, only to end up back on the street.
“I’ve long believed that we should have full information about criminal histories at this stage of the process,” Mulroy said.
That’s what lead to Mulroy and Harris’s announcement that going forward, for all serious crimes, the pretrial bail form will include a detailed list of every prior conviction.
The district attorney is in talks with juvenile court over whether or not to include a person’s juvenile records in these forms as well. The new paperwork will be used for violent crimes, sex offenses, car break-ins or any other crime that is part of D.A. Mulroy’s V11 Fast Track Violent Crim Initiative.
That would include Ray’s charge of owning a Glock Switch.
Ireland wishes they would have done this sooner.
“I think they should have been done that and I think the only reason they're doing that (now is) because children and elderly people are getting shot,” she said. “It’s every day.”
Mulroy and Harris claim this is just one of many steps they are taking to make sure dangerous criminals don’t walk free. When asked about the time it took to make this change, Mulroy said to “ask the judicial commissioners.”
ABC24 has reached out to Judge Lee Wilson several times to ask him about his new role overseeing the Shelby County judicial commissioners. ABC24 also reached out to Judge Wilson for a comment on the new bail policy Thursday but has not gotten a response.
D.A. Mulroy said they hope to start rolling out the new forms as early as Friday or by the following week at the latest.
