Steven J. Mulroy

Steven J. Mulroy has been on the law faculty of University of Memphis, Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law since 2000, teaching in the areas of Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Civil Rights, and Election Law. A former civil rights lawyer for the U.S. Justice Dept. and former federal prosecutor, he tried a number of voting rights cases which went to the Supreme Court, multi-million dollar lending discrimination and redlining cases, and bench and jury criminal cases before federal district courts and U.S. Circuit appellate courts.

As a law professor, Professor Mulroy has participated in the litigation of over a dozen cutting-edge cases in areas which inform his scholarship, including the challenge to the Palm Beach County, Florida "butterfly ballot" in the 2000 presidential election; the first-ever federal court injunction against a state senate's ongoing internal election recount proceedings; litigation establishing the legal standard for coram nobis challenges to criminal convictions in Tennessee; the first commutation of a death sentence in Tennessee in 40 years; the first federal case imposing "cumulative voting" as a non-district remedy for minority vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act; a 2014 Sixth Circuit decision overturning a death sentence; and the court-ordered expansion of mail voting rights during the 2020 pandemic.  He also served as an elected County Commissioner for Shelby County, TN (Memphis) for 8 years. 

He is a frequent commentator in local and national media on legal issues. He has published op-ed pieces in NEWSWEEK, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, THE NEW REPUBLIC, SLATE, SALON, THE HILL, and THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, as well as numerous pieces in all four major local Memphis newspapers. Nationally, he has appeared as a legal commentator numerous times on Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Fox Business News, and Public Radio International (PRI). He has been quoted by such media organizations as the Associated Press, USA TODAY, the WASHINGTON POST, the WASHINGTON TIMES, PEOPLE magazine, the DAILY CALLER, the DALLAS MORNING NEWS, and the NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN.