MEMPHIS, Tenn — Thursday marks a year since a mobile shooting rampage held Memphis at a standstill as hours of panic spread throughout the Bluff City. That night, Memphis Police said 19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly killed three people and injured three more across multiple crime scenes.
For those affected by the mobile mass shooting, Kelly’s case now stands out as a prime example of a court system they say is moving way too slowly, as his trial date still hasn't been set.
“If the law was to do their job and just prosecute someone, people would not be suffering like this,” said Aubrey Miller, the nephew of shooting spree victim Richard Clark.
The suspect, then 19-year-old Kelly, if convicted will receive the death penalty as his alleged crimes have left multiple victims and their families waiting for justice.
The case is still top of mind as Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy marked one year in office. Kelly’s case is one of nearly 87,000 cases Mulroy said his office sees in a year; distributed among 120 prosecutors.
“The old cliché is that the wheels of justice turn slowly,” Mulroy said. “Multiple victims, multiple crime scenes, there’s a lot of discovery, a lot of information that has the be collected and presented.”
Along with due process rules, to ensure a fair trial, the DA points to lab and testing result delays and the volume of cases for contributing to the case backlog.
It’s a backlog that led to less than 50 criminal court trials in the last year.
And despite Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland hiring retired Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Robert Carter to overhaul the court system for the city of Memphis, Mulroy said his focus is reducing crime that places people in the system in the first place.
“I don’t know whether it will have an impact,” Mulroy said about Carter’s appointment. “I am always in favor with our court system. One of the reasons why I held the crime summit is because there’s a crime crisis and it requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. I know it’s frustrating but it’s the system that we have.”
A court dat on Sept. 14 was reset until November.