Steven J. Mulroy, the newly elected district attorney of Shelby County, Tenn., whose office brought murder charges against the police officers involved in Tyre Nichols’s death, campaigned on a platform of criminal justice reform and increased accountability.
Mr. Mulroy, a progressive Democrat, took office in September after defeating a Republican incumbent, Amy Weirich, who had held office for more than a decade and characterized Mr. Mulroy as a radical candidate.
Mr. Mulroy, who called for bail reform and a reduction in the use of juvenile transfers to adult courts, handily won with 56 percent of the vote.
In December, he started a Justice Review Unit within the district attorney’s office to investigate possibly wrongful convictions and sentences, among other matters.
Mr. Mulroy told the TV station ABC24 Memphis in an interview this week that charges would be determined “by the facts and the law” as well as “what we think we have a reasonably good chance of convincing a jury beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
In the 1990s, Mr. Mulroy served in the U.S. Justice Department in Washington as a civil rights litigator and later as a federal prosecutor, according to his official biography. He taught for 22 years as a law professor at the University of Memphis and served as a Shelby County commissioner, part of the main legislative body for the county, for eight years.
While campaigning last year, Mr. Mulroy drew support from local activists as well as from celebrities like the singer John Legend. He also attended a luncheon with relatives of Black victims of police violence, including members of the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake families, according to The Commercial Appeal in Memphis.
