The Most Misconduct: Memphis Prosecutor Amy Weirich
Amy Weirich has served as Shelby County District Attorney General since 2014, but her reign of terror began many years before that as a deputy prosecutor in the same office. Weirich’s record as a prosecutor, and as the top prosecutor responsible for the entire office, is rife with performing, condoning, and encouraging inappropriate behavior and misconduct.
Weirich and her office routinely fail to turn over evidence to defense lawyers that state law and the U.S. Constitution require prosecutors to disclose. Weirich herself has made inappropriate remarks during closing arguments in murder cases, and even cases where she asked a jury to sentence a person to die in Tennessee’s execution chamber. Her behavior is so atrocious that the state supreme court had to reverse multiple convictions that she obtained, and the state legal ethics board reprimanded her.
Here are just a few examples of her disturbing record as prosecutor:
The Most Misconduct in Tennessee. A Harvard Law School study that examined the first five years of Weirich’s tenure from 2011 to 2015 uncovered more than a dozen examples of misconduct in her office. Weirich’s office led the state in both findings of misconduct and the number of cases reversed due to misconduct. Even adjusted for population, only 6% of Tennessee’s 95 counties had more reversed convictions based on prosecutorial misconduct than the office Weirich leads.
Fueling A Misconduct Ridden Culture. Tom Henderson, a top prosecutor in Weirich’s office made “blatantly false, inappropriate and ethically questionable” statements about the existence of evidence that could have helped exonerate a man who Henderson put on death row. According to the appellate court, Henderson “purposefully misled counsel with regard to the evidence.” Henderson was censured by the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility in 2013 for misleading defense lawyers in the case. But Weirich defended him, claiming that the nondisclosure was inadvertent, and refused to demote him. Weirich’s support came despite the fact that Henderson had similarly failed to disclose exculpatory evidence in multiple other cases, including a 2006 death penalty case that ended in a mistrial after a judge determined that Henderson failed to turn evidence.
Breaking The Rules To Convict A Teenager of Killing Her Mother. In 2014, The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned a murder conviction in the case of a then 18 year old named Noura Jackson, who was accused of killing her mother, finding that Weirich made forbidden inflammatory remarks intended to improperly sway the jury toward a conviction. The Court wrote that the law is so well settled on this issue that “it is not at all clear why any prosecutor would venture into this forbidden territory.” In the same case, she illegally withheld evidence from the defense that tended to undermine the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness against Jackson despite multiple requests from the defense for the evidence.
Formally reprimanded. Disciplinary Counsel for the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility filed a Petition For Discipline, stating that Weirich “failed to conduct herself in conformity” with the rules of professional conduct and urged the full Board to publicly censure Weirich based on her misconduct. Disciplinary Counsel then had to file a supplemental petition based on additional inappropriate behavior. Ultimately, the Board of Professional Responsibility issued a private reprimand.
This month, outside of the courthouse in Memphis, as judges, lawyers, and citizens walked in and out of the halls of justice, they saw a mobile billboard that highlighted Weirich’s disgraceful record on prosecutorial misconduct.
The Memphis Flyer with MLK50, Commercial Appeal covered the campaign and other local advocates shared images on social media.
