Shelby County Commissioner Mick Wright on Friday called for the resignation of General Sessions Court Judge Bill Anderson, who leads the county magistrates that determine possible bail assignments after suspected criminals are arrested.
Wright (pictured above, right) said he is calling for Anderson’s resignation in remarks to WREG, pointing to soft bail policies from Anderson’s office as a source of Memphis’ crime.
“It’s time for Judge Anderson to step down from leading the judicial commissioners,” Wright told the outlet.
He noted, “The number one important thing for a judge is to be impartial, and I know he has already been reprimanded with regard to his statements on the bail bond industry.”
Anderson (pictured above, left) was publicly reprimanded by the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct (BJC) in February after he previously expressed his disdain for Tennessee’s “bail bond system.”
The judge claimed bail bonding companies “don’t do anything but collect money from poor people,” and admitted, “I detest the bail bond system in Shelby County, I detest it across this state.”
In their reprimand, the BJC said Anderson’s remarks were inappropriate for his position.
“It is one thing for a judge to appear publicly and explain specific problems in an area of the law in which the judge has expertise; it is quite another for a judge to publicly declare that he or she ‘detests’ the law that the judge is charged with applying,” they declared.
Wright, in his remarks to WREG, additionally claimed Anderson is “on the record” “pressuring” Shelby County magistrates to release defendants without bail as “some kind of quota.”
The commissioner told the outlet, “We need leadership change and we need people who are willing to keep the public safe.”
Anderson previously received scrutiny last November, after it was revealed the judge released a suspect with zero bond despite police saying the man admitted to his role in the Thanksgiving Day murder of a 15-year-old.
The judge’s role in that release led State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) to demand action from the BJC in a letter that also warned Anderson’s influence is “corrupting the judicial commissioners’ bail decisions” in Shelby County.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Shelby County Commissioner Mick Wright” by Shelby County Commission and “Judge Bill Anderson” is by Bill Anderson.
