The Department of Justice said Friday it has ended its six-year federal oversight of Shelby County Juvenile Court.

The Memorandum of Agreement was entered by all parties in 2012 to address the results of an investigation by the DOJ which found 120 areas that were not up to standard in the county government’s juvenile justice system.

“The Department of Justice is committed to protecting the constitutional rights of all juveniles who enter the justice system,” said acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore of the Civil Rights Division in a news release on the DOJ website. “Shelby County made commendable efforts to improve its juvenile justice system. The Department is pleased to see Shelby County and its local elected officials embrace and show public commitment to continuing the reforms it has made.”

The DOJ said in the news release that it was closing its MOA with both the Juvenile Court and the detention center at the facility.

"I stand by that decision," Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael said Friday evening in a written statement. "Juvenile Court will move forward operating with the changes that were made in partnership with the Department of Justice. We will work closely with Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and Sheriff Floyd Bonner to make further improvements and maintain the court's reputation as one of the nation's model juvenile courts."

Bill Powell, the former settlement agreement coordinator for the DOJ’s agreement with Shelby County Juvenile Court, said that he thinks ending the agreement is a “huge mistake.”

“Given that the monitors report saying that black and white children are being treated differently and that due process (issues) remain that it seems premature to terminate the agreement and it just seems to be a purely political move in my opinion,” Powell said in a telephone interview Friday evening.

Powell resigned in protest in 2017 when he learned of the first request by then-county mayor Mark Luttrell, sheriff Bill Oldham and Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael to end DOJ oversight.

The Justice Department refused to end oversight of specific problems it cited in the 2012 agreement involving due process issues and disproportionate minority contact – more transfers for trial as adults and harsher treatment of black juveniles than white juveniles for the same offenses.

Toward the end of Luttrell’s tenure as mayor, he renewed the request for an end to Justice Department oversight.

Shelby County Commission Chairman Van Turner said he has heard Justice Department officials will be in Memphis later to brief all involved on the decision announced late Friday afternoon via press release.

“We are troubled by what the Department of Justice has done,” Turner said at an evening press conference with fellow commissioners Tami Sawyer and Reginald Milton. “We will ask the Department of Justice to reconsider this decision. This is still a problem. And it should trouble everyone in this county.”

“These are our black and brown children who are still getting the short end of the stick,” Sawyer said, complaining that commissioners met just last week with the settlement agreement monitors, but found out about the Justice Department decision from the media.

“We are the funding body of Juvenile Court. We are the funding body of the sheriff’s department,” she said. “This underhanded decision, this underhanded move, just makes me wonder whose children really matter.”

Milton said citizens should react at the polls.

“Get out and vote,” he said. “Let your voices be heard because there are people who do not care about you and your family and your children. And we must make a change today.”

Turner said the commission, with eight new members who took office in September, will continue to push for reforms in Juvenile Court. But he conceded it will be more difficult without Justice Department oversight.

“We are going to push even harder now,” he said. “Now that the Department of Justice has removed oversight, that just puts the burden on the County Commission and we will accept that challenge.”

The agreement called for continued monitoring on an annual basis even after the court met all of the numerous findings in the 2012 agreement. Turner said the court hasn’t met all of the conditions of the agreement.

“One of the main issues was that we were concerned about sustainability,” Turner said. “We know that there have been improvements, but how do we sustain the improvements over time? Will they regress back to what they were doing? Without the Department of Justice involved, I fear that they will now. That was a concern that they had.”

Harris and many on the new commission wanted DOJ oversight to continue, as there were at least 20 provisions left in the memorandum.

In September, Harris appointed Herman Morris to replace former Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers as settlement coordinator over the agreement. Summers had advocated to end DOJ oversight.

Last week in a committee meeting, most of the 13 commissioners recommended approving a resolution to rescind former mayor Luttrell’s second letter requesting that the DOJ end oversight of Juvenile Court. The resolution was recommended with an 8-4 vote, but never made it to final vote of the full commission.

During the DOJ's biannual visit to Juvenile Court last week, Pamela Skelton, juvenile court chief administrative officer, told commissioners 95 of the 120 different issues in the original memorandum agreement have been resolved.

Bonner said 41 issues regarding the juvenile detention center needed to be addressed, according to the memorandum signed in 2012. He said last week that of the 41 issues, they complied or partially complied with all but one and that was a suicide plan for the detention center.

- Reporters Bill Dries and Yolanda Jones contributed to this story.