Comments on crime, race cause an uproar
Language in letter, defiant tone met with rebuke
A settlement coordinator hired by Shelby County contends his bosses are in “substantial compliance” with a federal mandate to curtail unequal treatment of children at Juvenile Court, but his language on race has touched off a new round of controversy.
Paul G. Summers says in a report that major discrimination concerns flagged by federal monitors at Juvenile Court have been resolved, recommending that Justice Department oversight in place since 2012 cease by July 15.
“We do not have a race problem in Shelby County, Washington, D.C., or Chicago, for that matter,” writes Summers, a former judge and Tennessee Attorney General.
“We do not have a (disproportionate minority contact), and equal protection, a detention, or a due process problem. We have a crime problem,” said Summers, who blamed “a handful of uninformed community activists” for the initial complaints about Juvenile Court.
“If you paid attention to the complaints filed back in 2009 ... you would think that every morning when a Memphis policeman or a Shelby County deputy got out of bed, he or she yearned
about arresting some black child for being unruly or shoplifting, while ignoring white children in East Memphis who were committing aggravated burglary.”
Summers’ report met immediate rebuke.
“This letter was shocking in the language that it used and the defiant tone,” said Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City, a criminal justice reform advocacy group, who disagreed with Summers’ assessment that the county has achieved substantial compliance in all areas of concern.
“There’s no way they’re in full compliance,” Spickler said. “They’ve denied this (supervision) is even necessary. That’s what’s most shocking.”
Rhodes College professor Charles W. McKinney blasted Summers.
“We’re still combating the reality of #plantationjustice in Memphis. This document reads like a letter penned in the 1840s,” McKinney wrote on his Twitter account.
Summers’ compliance report has not been officially released by Shelby County. County Chief Administrative Officer Harvey KennedyCQ said he has not read Summers’ report and doesn’t know if Mayor Mark Luttrell has read it.
“Whatever is in the report, they’re his (Summers’) comments, not mine,” Kennedy said.
Summers could not be reached Friday afternoon. He said in a cover letter attached to his report, “I shall stand by this report in any forum in which I am called.”
Summers, 68CQ, was state attorney general from 1999 through 2006. He served as district attorney general for Judicial District 25 — Fayette, Tipton, Hardeman, Lauderdale and McNairy counties — from 1982 to 1990 and then served from 1990 to 1999 as a judge on the state Court of Criminal Appeals.
Luttrell appointed him last year as the county’s Department of Justice settlement coordinator.
Summers’ latest compliance report notes progress in resolving the Memorandum of Agreement signed between the county and the Justice Department in December 2012. The Justice Department last fall terminated more than a dozen subsections of the agreement. However, federal monitor Michael Leiber noted the court has “yet to yield significant changes” in disproportionate minority contact and “greater equity in the handling of youth and in particular, black youth.”
Summers says in his report that Juvenile Court’s harsh treatment of African-American youths has been muted.
“It is also important to note that the Equal Protection Monitor’s analysis continues to reflect that race is not a statistically significant determinant of judicial decisionmaking,” Summers wrote.
Officials also have done a better job protecting youths from harm in the Detention Facility, Summers said.