Courtroom proceedings at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center, also known as 201 Poplar, have been under a magnifying glass as observers have sat in to study the efficiency of the criminal justice process. 

Two separate reports — one from local nonprofit Just City and a second from a court watcher hired by outgoing Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland — shed new light on the system, specifically when it comes to case resolutions and trial numbers.

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Recently, Strickland released a report that he contracted retired Criminal Court Judge Robert “Bobby” Carter to create.

Carter’s report focused largely on the lack of trials being held in Shelby County and how long it takes for cases to be resolved. In the report, released on Friday, Dec. 1, Carter also suggested solutions to speed up the disposition of cases.

Just City published the results of its most recent Court Watch report in October, which includes statistics on the percentage of charges dismissed over the last year, as well as the average length of case resolution in Shelby County Criminal Court and Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court. 

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Fewer than 40 trials have been completed in Shelby County over the last year, according to Carter’s report, compared to the nearly 200 per year that Carter says were conducted during most of his tenure. Carter was on the bench from 2010 to 2022.

Carter looked at all 10 of Shelby County’s criminal courts, as well as the general sessions courts, in his assessment.

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In the report, Carter pointed to the pandemic as part of the reason for the lack of trials, noting the limitation of in-person court appearances imposed by the Tennessee Supreme Court in March 2020.

“For a year, these and other local restrictions made the conducting of jury trials an impossibility,” he wrote. “Limited court business was conducted using masks, video appearances and other distancing methods. Extreme methods of bail reduction and case settlement kept the system from being totally overwhelmed.”

Carter said the tempo of court business had returned to near pre-pandemic levels by late 2021, but since Sept. 1, 2022, the number of trials being conducted has “drastically declined,” Carter wrote. 

Strickland hired Carter in July to monitor Shelby County’s criminal courts amid concerns among many politicians, government officials and residents over how the courts are being run, especially in light of rising or persistently high crime levels in the city. 

Strickland has often referred to 201 Poplar as a “revolving door,” but Carter said that description did not influence his assignment.

“I think my findings support his fears or conclusions about (the local court system),” he told The Daily Memphian.

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Carter was paid $200 an hour for the work he did, according to his contract, which was good through July 31, 2024, with a one-year renewal option. 

He said he will have made about $12,800 for his work after invoices he submitted to the city are cleared.

Carter said his task is likely completed, despite the renewal option, but that he would be open to talks with the incoming administration about continuing. He also said he has not spoken with Mayor-elect Paul Young.

The relatively small number of trials being conducted now has caused an increase in the number of cases that have gone on for years without a resolution, according to Carter.

As an example of problems in the court system, Carter’s report pointed to the cases of McKinney Wright and Gregory Livingston, two defendants facing murder charges from 2018 and 2021, respectively. 

Wright pleaded guilty Monday, Dec. 4, to second-degree murder in the killing of Greater Memphis Chamber CEO Phil Trenary in 2018. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison with credit for time served.

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Livingston’s trial, which was slated to begin Oct. 30, was pushed to April 29, 2024. 

“These are only two of the more than 300 murder cases pending in the Shelby County Criminal Courts,” Carter wrote in the report.

Carter wrote that every week, “six, seven or more” trials are slated to begin but that sometimes only two actually do begin. Some weeks, no trials are conducted at all, he said. 

Many cases are settled, continued to another date or are dismissed, according to Carter. This is often because of problems with witnesses, he said.

“With only one trial set in a given courtroom per week, these alternative outcomes result in the whole week being a missed opportunity for any of the myriad other cases awaiting trial,” Carter wrote.

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More than half of all charges Shelby County defendants faced in the last year were dismissed, according to an October report from local nonprofit Just City.

On average, 63.62% of total charges in Shelby County Criminal Court were dismissed, according to an analysis of the data. About 67.84% of charges in Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court were dismissed. A single defendant can — and often does — face multiple charges.

The most recent Just City report included analysis of each of Shelby County’s 10 criminal courts and eight of its nine general sessions criminal courts. It didn’t include statistics from the county’s environmental court, which is the county’s ninth general sessions criminal court.

Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court is a limited jurisdiction court, meaning that many cases can only go so far before they have to be transferred to criminal court.

A felony case, for example, can only go up to a preliminary hearing, the step before it is sent to a grand jury for an indictment decision.

Since the data was pulled from the Shelby County Criminal Justice Portal, Just City data scientist Ryan Carroll said expunged cases — or those that are removed from the public record and thus don’t appear in the publicly available database — were not included. 

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Carroll said that in order to highlight what they claim is overcharging of defendants, Just City chose to include the percentage of individual charges that were dismissed rather than the number of whole cases that were dismissed. 

For organizations like Just City, “overcharging” refers to the practice of charging defendants with more crimes than a prosecutor may be able to prove in order to leverage a guilty plea later.

“They know the charges don’t stick because they don’t have the evidence available. But they know some things are going to stick,” said Just City Court Watch program manager Yonée Gibson.

Carter disagreed with this assessment, saying the level of dismissals instead highlights his point about the lack of trials being conducted. Carter suggested in his report that dismissal percentages could be so high because pleading guilty to one charge often results in the others being dismissed.

Carter also said prosecutors have to give better deals to get defendants to plead guilty because trials aren’t being held.

“The carrot has to get bigger and bigger if there is no stick,” he said.

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Just City’s numbers cover Sept. 1, 2022, through Aug. 31 and are slightly higher than the most recent numbers available from the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), which Carter highlighted in his report. 

The AOC data showed that from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, 55.2% of criminal charges — not cases — in Shelby County were dismissed.

That was before the tenure of current Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy, which began Sept. 1, 2022. Just City’s report covers the period after Mulroy started.

Additional data not published by Just City but provided to The Daily Memphian shows that, on average, 33.49% of whole criminal court cases — not individual charges — were dismissed from Sept. 1, 2022 to Aug. 31.

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Case dismissal percentages for general sessions criminal court were much higher at an average of 64.03%.

Former Shelby County DA Amy Weirich told The Daily Memphian that cases can be dismissed for a number of reasons, including witness issues like Carter suggested in his report.

“It’s a whole host of things. Every case has to be handled on its own strengths and weaknesses and merits,” she said.

Weirich said that during her tenure there was no set policy about which types of cases to dismiss, except charges of driving on a suspended license. Exceptions were made for those who had their license revoked for a DUI or vehicular manslaughter, for example, but still chose to drive anyway, she said. 

Just City’s Gibson conceded that case dismissals can be random but can also be a result of overcharging and individual judges’ practices.

“I think it’s both random, and it’s a pattern between the judges and the courtrooms.”