THE FIRST WOMAN TO SERVE AS DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL IN SHELBY COUNTY.

Amy Weirich became Shelby County District Attorney General in January of 2011. She was appointed by Governor Bill Haslam and then was elected on August 3, 2012, to serve the remaining two years on the term of her predecessor, Bill Gibbons. She was re-elected to a full eight-year term on August 7, 2014.

DA Weirich oversees a total staff of 238, including more than 110 prosecutors.

DA Weirich joined the District Attorney’s Office in 1991 as a courtroom prosecutor, handling many high-profile criminal cases and serving in many leadership roles. She was Chief Prosecutor of the Gang and Narcotics Prosecution Unit and Division Leader for the Special Prosecution Unit in Criminal Court. 

She helped create the Multi-Agency Gang Unit (MGU), the first federal, state and local law enforcement organization designed to curb gang activity. In 2013, the MGU imposed the state’s first anti-gang injunction in the Riverside neighborhood of Memphis. DA Weirich also spearheaded a focused deterrence initiative called Operation Comeback, aiming to deter high-risk offenders by getting them on a path to success.

In 2019 DA Weirich implemented vertical prosecution in which teams of prosecutors are assigned to specific courtrooms and handle cases from start to finish, resulting in better continuity for victims and more efficiency in prosecutions. She also established a Community Prosecution model in which three prosecutors assigned to police precincts work with officers and community leaders to identify the worst offenders while also seeking ways to keep lesser offenders from early involvement in the justice system.

She also has created the first Community Justice Program, a grassroots alternative to traditional prosecution that uses trained volunteers from the community to address offender-participants and restore victims and communities impacted by their crimes. The restorative justice approach aims to make the victim whole, address the needs of the offender-participant, and give the community a larger role in the criminal justice process.

DA Weirich not only has pushed for harsher punishment for violent offenders but also has embraced innovative ways to prevent crime from happening in the first place. Her office sponsors the annual Do the Write Thing anti-violence essay contest for Shelby County Schools students and created Lives Worth Saving, a prostitution-diversion program with Calvary Episcopal Church and nonprofit organizations.

Throughout her tenure, DA Weirich has also focused on improving the lives of Shelby County citizens. The District Attorney’s Office sponsors Restoration Saturday, a multi-agency event held under the same roof to help citizens with expungements, child support, jobs and much more. As of September 2018, her office no longer prosecutes individuals driving on licenses that have been revoked due to monetary reasons only.

DA Weirich earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee at Martin, and a law degree from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law