Court dates canceled as officials work to reduce jail population
Citing the need to drastically reduce the population in county jails, as well as an order from the Tennessee Supreme Court, District Attorney General Amy Weirich announced Monday that all out-of-custody court dates in April have been canceled.
Any and all defendants who are out of custody with a court date in April, Weirich said, “should be on notice that those will not happen.”
The cancellations apply to all General Sessions criminal division and Criminal Court cases involving people who are currently not jailed, according to a notification sent by Criminal Court Clerk’s spokesman Kevin Phipps.
At present, the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center will hold court appearances only for inmates currently in custody. There will be no jury trials for April.
Weirich also said the county is working to ascertain whether grand jury hearings will still take place.
“What we want to be mindful of during
At present, the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center will hold court appearances only for inmates currently in custody. There will be no jury trials for April.
this crisis, and every day, is that for victims of crime, the DA’S office is still open, the criminal courts are still open, and the general sessions court is still open,” Weirich said. “But all we are handling are cases involving inmates who are in custody.”
The move comes after weeks of other measures to reduce the amount of people entering and leaving the criminal justice complex in Downtown Memphis, as well as in the Shelby County Juvenile Court.
At the beginning of 2020, Weirich said, roughly 2,600 defendants were in custody at 201 Poplar. That number, Weirich said, has been whittled to 1,900.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and Weirich said Monday that the county has been working to reduce the in-custody population of county jails for some time now, even pre-pandemic.
Part of the effort to reduce the numbers of inmates, Weirich said, is the use of a new assessment tool that ensures only “the worst of the worst” offenders are held in custody.