Justice review unit launches website, begins accepting applications for case review

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy's long-promised conviction review unit is slated to launch its website Thursday, officially opening the door for applications to be filed by those who believe they were wrongly convicted or over-sentenced.

The unit was a promise made during the campaign for the newly elected DA, and he has since expanded the scope beyond wrongful convictions and into wrongful sentencing as well, hence the unit's new name as the "justice review unit."

"These are things that matter to people, it's very important and could give years back on your freedom," Mulroy told The Commercial Appeal in a September interview. He went on to reference changes in the law, especially retroactive changes, that might have changed the intensity of sentencing guidelines.

The unit will not take away from the pool of existing prosecutors, Mulroy said, but will operate as a way of having someone check the work being done at the DA's office.

"If I have to review my own work, I'm less likely to catch an error than if you review my work," he told The Commercial Appeal in the September interview.

Applications will be available online and will then be reviewed by the unit, headed by Lorna McClusky, a long-time defense attorney from Memphis. She was named to the role by Mulroy in mid-October and told The Commercial Appeal that the unit would be "extremely independent" and "maintain a high level of confidentiality" when it opened at the end of the year.

The unit will report directly to Mulroy, with Justice Review Unit Chief McClusky and Assistant Chief Robert Gowen, another veteran defense attorney from the Shelby County public defender's office, having offices right around the corner from Mulroy's.

Case files, along with interview spaces, for the unit will be located on an entirely separate floor at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar, further allowing independence from the DA's office.

McClusky and Gowen will be the only attorneys in the unit for the time being, and are ready for problems to spring up during investigations. But those problems don't necessarily concern the head of the new department.

"We expect to run into problems," she said. "We expect that all parties involved in the prosecution of a case, and in law enforcement as well, to maintain their files. Files sometimes get lost...but I don't think that will stop us. I am pretty sure that [Gowen] and I are more than happy to go dig around in any old file warehouse in Shelby County."

Neither McClusky or Gowen will hand-pick cases to look into without an application being filled out, but McClusky has already heard from other review units about people from police departments, or DA offices, or public defender offices reaching out to give tips into cases.

"What we're learning from other units across the country is that sometimes a police officer will pick up the phone and say, 'I think you need to look at this.' Sometimes a prosecutor will pick up the phone and say, 'I think you need to look at this'," she said. "I think we'' get some ideas, referrals so to speak, from persons other than defendants and their attorneys. But I think we're going to be too busy to go look for anything."

Applications can be filled out with no cost online at https://www.shelbyjru.com/ and applicants must have had cases that resulted in a conviction and occurred in Shelby County. Federal cases are not applicable for review. The justice review unit, according to their application, will only speak with either the convicted individual or their attorney, if they have one.

Justice review unit's development spearheaded by exoneree

In 2013, William Arnold was sentenced to 25 years in prison for aggravated sexual battery and child rape. He was serving his sentence at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex when he found an article in a Nashville paper about the Davidson County conviction review unit.

"I didn't know what it mean, but it sounded like something that could help me particularly because I had been convicted by this imperfect manmade criminal justice situation," Arnold said. "I applied...and received a letter telling me that they couldn't do anything for me at that time because my case was still going through the appeals process."

Although he wasn't able to get help from the conviction review unit, his case was ultimately overturned in 2020 and he was exonerated.

A native Memphian, Arnold returned to Memphis in April 2020. His involvement with the creation of the Shelby County justice review unit came by chance. He was out having dinner when he saw then-candidate Mulroy at the restaurant.

"I approached him because I knew that he had been speaking about a conviction review unit and wanted to introduce myself to him," he said.

After the election, Arnold helped work with a group of attorneys to figure out what the best practices would be for the unit, along with evaluating the frameworks of existing review units across the country. His one concern with the website now live comes from getting incarcerated people access to the application.

"There are 13 prisons across the state, and very few of them have internet access — those that do have sites that are whitelisted," he said. "My question is now, more or less, how are we going to market it? Not everyone has access to the internet."

Lucas Finton is a news reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Website launches and applications live for justice review unit