MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Shelby County has spent about $58 million on emergency repairs at the Walter L. Bailey Jr. Criminal Justice Center, and it has still not commissioned the engineering assessment its own commissioners have been requesting since April.

The building at 201 Poplar houses the county jail, the General Sessions Criminal Court divisions, the three divisions of Memphis Municipal Court and the clerk's offices for both. Since late June it has repeatedly failed as a functioning courthouse.

The first closure came June 29, after a broken water main flooded the lower level. Courts reopened July 1. They closed again July 13 for flooding repairs. Memphis Municipal Courts and the City Court Clerk's Office stayed shut for more than a week after that, with the city posting closure notices on July 20 and July 21. They reopened Wednesday, July 22, but not fully: Administrative Judge Jayne Chandler said Divisions 1 and 2 would operate out of the main-level auditorium through Friday, July 24, with no trials scheduled because of the space, and the Prosecutor's Office rescheduling affected cases. The Daily Memphian, which tallied the disruption, reported that at least part of the building was closed on nine of the 17 weekdays preceding July 22, often with little public notice.

Separately, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office held an emergency news conference on July 8 after 14 inmates and five staff members were overcome by heat inside the jail. The facility's air conditioning had been out for about a month. A diesel fuel spill from a generator also flooded the kitchen.

Against that backdrop, Commissioner Mick Wright wrote Mayor Lee Harris on June 30 asking him to issue a Request for Qualifications for a detailed assessment of the Criminal Justice Center, to determine whether the building can be saved. The commission had first requested such an assessment in April. Wright pointed to seven resolutions since September 2024 funding plumbing services and supplies at 201 Poplar, totaling more than $1 million, alongside dozens of other repair and renovation resolutions, and told Action News 5 that his reaction to the latest leak was a lack of surprise.

Commissioner Charlie Caswell sent his own letter on July 10, addressed to both Harris and Sheriff Floyd Bonner, writing that the issues deserve immediate attention.

Harris has not publicly announced plans to issue the assessment, and no RFQ for the work appears in the county's public procurement postings as of July 26. Responding to Wright's request, he said the county's schools and neighborhoods are in worse shape.

The disagreement over what to do with the building is long-running and genuine. Bonner has repeatedly called for a new jail, an option reported at roughly $1 billion. Harris has favored repairing and upgrading the existing facility, which also carries a substantial cost. Neither will be in office to see the decision through. Harris is in the final weeks of his final term, and Bonner is retiring at the end of his term on August 31.

The criminal justice reform group Just City counts 68 in-custody deaths at the facility since 2018.

Why It Matters for Memphis

$58 million is not a line item. It is roughly the cost of a mid-sized capital project, spent in pieces, on a building nobody has formally evaluated. Every one of those repairs was approved by someone. None of them were preceded by a study establishing how much useful life the building has left, which is the number that would tell taxpayers whether the money is an investment or a subsidy for delay.

The court closures are the part residents feel. A person summoned to General Sessions or Municipal Court does not have the option of not appearing. When the doors are locked with little notice, the cost lands on people who took a day off work, arranged childcare or paid for a ride downtown, and it lands again when the case is reset. Katera French, who came to pay a traffic ticket on July 21, found the building closed.

Accountability Watch

Who is accountable: Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris

What is pending: A Request for Qualifications for a detailed engineering assessment of the Walter L. Bailey Jr. Criminal Justice Center, to determine whether the building can be saved

When: Requested in writing by Commissioner Mick Wright on June 30, 2026; first requested by the Commission in April 2026

Status: No public record of an RFQ as of July 26, 2026

How to verify: Shelby County purchasing and procurement postings, Commission agendas and resolutions at shelbycountytn.gov, and the Wright and Caswell letters posted with the Action News 5 report