A judge has ordered Shelby County to reimburse legal fees from the second unsuccessful ouster effort against County Clerk Wanda Halbert. The amount remains unsettled publicly — and it represents only one side of what taxpayers spent trying to remove her.
By The Redemption Project Newsroom
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Shelby County tried twice to remove County Clerk Wanda Halbert from office.
Neither attempt removed her.
Now, as Halbert reaches the end of her final term, taxpayers face a bill traveling in the opposite direction.
Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson ordered county government to pay Halbert’s legal fees associated with the second ouster effort, according to The Daily Memphian and Action News 5. The final amount had not been publicly established as of this review, and county attorneys have objected to the payment or indicated that further litigation may follow.
That reimbursement is only one piece of the taxpayer cost.
Shelby County also used government attorneys and outside counsel to pursue the removal case, fought an appeal through the Tennessee Court of Appeals, opposed Halbert’s attempt to take the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court and prepared for a trial that the county ultimately abandoned shortly before Halbert’s term expired.
A complete accounting therefore needs two sides.
What did Shelby County spend trying to remove Halbert, and what will it now spend reimbursing her for defending herself?
Tennessee law allows reimbursement when an official is not removed
Tennessee’s ouster statute recognizes that removing an elected official is an extraordinary government action.
Section 8-47-121 says that after final hearing, a public officer who is not removed from office may be reimbursed reasonable attorney fees by the appropriate state, county, municipality or other political subdivision. If the case is appealed, reimbursement is delayed until final judgment.
The provision does not declare the official competent, vindicated on every allegation or immune from political criticism.
It addresses who may bear the cost of defending an ouster action when the proceeding does not result in removal.
That distinction matters with Halbert.
Her administration faced years of criticism involving financial reporting, office closures, vehicle-registration backlogs, unpaid rent and other operational problems. The first ouster petition itself accused her of willful neglect of official duties, while the investigation that preceded it found no criminal wrongdoing.
The failure to remove her does not erase those controversies.
It means the particular legal remedy Shelby County pursued twice never produced an order removing her from office.
The fee statute itself may become part of the next fight
The exact Aug. 24 fee order is now an essential record.
The statutory text refers to reimbursement “after final hearing.” The second Halbert action did not reach the trial that had been scheduled for Aug. 24. Shelby County filed for voluntary dismissal in July, saying that proceeding with a trial during the final week of Halbert’s term would cost taxpayers money without providing meaningful practical relief.
Corbin-Johnson nevertheless subsequently ordered the county to pay Halbert’s legal fees associated with the case, according to local reporting.
TRP should not attempt to supply the judge’s legal reasoning before obtaining that order.
The document should establish which fees are covered, what proceedings are excluded, what factual and statutory findings support reimbursement and whether the county must pay immediately or can stay payment through another appeal.
That is especially important because the Tennessee Court of Appeals had already discussed Halbert’s fee request while the second case was pending.
In its October 2025 decision, the appeals court said the fee question was premature at that stage because the underlying ouster case remained unresolved.
The case is no longer pending in the same posture.
But the final fee ruling now needs to speak for itself.
The first attempt did not produce the appellate fight
The two ouster efforts need to remain separate.
The first petition was filed May 6, 2024, by Hamilton County District Attorney General Coty Wamp, who had been assigned after Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy recused his office. Wamp’s investigation concluded without criminal allegations against Halbert but produced a civil ouster petition alleging willful neglect of duty.
That petition was dismissed the following month after a Shelby County judge concluded Wamp did not have the legal authority to bring the civil ouster proceeding.
Shelby County then pursued a second route.
On Aug. 2, 2024, the State of Tennessee, upon the relation of Shelby County Attorney Marlinee Iverson, filed another petition seeking Halbert’s removal. Iverson cited a conflict and delegated the matter to Deputy County Attorney Lee Whitwell, who retained Robert D. Meyers of Glankler Brown PLLC as special outside counsel to prosecute the action.
That second action created the lengthy appellate litigation.
The second case was dismissed, revived and then abandoned
Corbin-Johnson initially dismissed the second petition after finding problems with the county’s standing and use of outside counsel.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals reversed that portion of her ruling in October 2025, concluding that the Shelby County Attorney remained the statutory relator and could act through delegated and retained counsel. The appellate court sent the case back for further proceedings.
Halbert then sought Tennessee Supreme Court review.
The Supreme Court denied permission to appeal March 31, 2026, and the case returned to Shelby County Circuit Court.
A trial eventually was scheduled for Aug. 24 — one week before Halbert’s term ended.
But Shelby County did not take the case to trial.
The county filed a notice seeking voluntary dismissal July 17. Chief Litigating Attorney Lee Whitwell later said the county had wanted an earlier trial but concluded that spending additional public money on a proceeding during Halbert’s final days in office would no longer provide meaningful relief.
That decision prevented the second ouster effort from producing a trial verdict on whether Halbert’s conduct legally justified removal.
It did not prevent a dispute about the money spent getting there.
The public needs the prosecution bill, too
Most of the public attention now is understandably on what Shelby County may have to reimburse Halbert.
That can produce a misleading denominator.
Halbert’s invoice is the defense cost.
The county’s own expenditures are the prosecution cost.
Both belong in the taxpayer ledger.
The second case plainly involved outside counsel. The Court of Appeals opinion identifies Meyers, Danielle Rassoul and Aubrey Greer, all of Glankler Brown, as counsel for the county on appeal.
Those services were not free.
Neither were transcripts, appellate-record preparation, service costs or other litigation expenses.
The first case had a separate procedural history and may have involved different government resources and outside costs.
The county should therefore publish the direct expenditures for each proceeding rather than presenting one combined legal-services account that cannot be traced back to the litigation.
Staff time and actual spending are different numbers
Government accounting can make litigation appear cheaper or more expensive depending on what is included.
An outside-law-firm invoice is a direct expenditure attributable to a case.
A transcript purchased specifically for the appeal is another.
A filing fee, expert invoice or special litigation expense can be treated similarly.
An in-house county attorney’s salary is different.
The county would ordinarily pay that salary whether or not the attorney spent 100 hours on the Halbert case. Those hours still represent taxpayer resources and an opportunity cost — work performed on one matter instead of another — but they should not automatically be added to the direct cash cost as though the salary existed only because of the litigation.
The clean ledger therefore should publish at least two figures:
Direct incremental expenditures, including outside counsel, court-related expenses and reimbursement to Halbert.
And government staff time, reported separately in hours or an expressly labeled allocated-cost estimate.
That prevents a legitimate Follow the Dollar project from creating its own misleading total.
“Reasonable” does not necessarily mean every dollar billed
The reimbursement statute uses the word reasonable.
That matters.
A court considering a fee award can examine billing records, hourly rates, time spent, duplication and whether particular work was connected to the litigation for which fees may lawfully be recovered.
The public therefore needs more than a final lump sum.
It needs the fee petition, billing exhibits, county objections, court order and any reductions.
Appropriate redactions can protect privileged communications and litigation strategy without concealing the lawyers’ rates, overall hours, broad work categories and total amount requested.
If the county appeals the fee award, that appeal should receive its own cost line.
Otherwise Shelby County could spend more money litigating over how much money it owes for litigation it already stopped pursuing.
Two cases need two ledgers
The first ouster petition and the second were legally distinct proceedings.
They had different initiating authority, different procedural paths and potentially different expense structures.
A useful public accounting would therefore identify the cost of:
Attempt One — Wamp proceeding
investigation-related expenses attributable to the ouster process;
litigation and court costs;
any county legal work or outside assistance;
Halbert defense reimbursement, if any was sought or paid.
Attempt Two — Iverson/Meyers proceeding
Glankler Brown contracts and invoices;
County Attorney staff time;
trial-court expenses;
Court of Appeals work;
Tennessee Supreme Court work;
post-remand trial preparation;
Halbert fee reimbursement;
any appeal of that reimbursement.
Only after those amounts are separated should they be combined.
The financial question survives Halbert’s departure
Halbert’s tenure as Shelby County clerk ends Aug. 31. Clerk-elect LaSonya Hall takes office Sept. 1.
That closes the political chapter.
It does not close the public-finance one.
Residents can reach different conclusions about Halbert’s performance. They can believe county officials were justified in trying to remove her, believe the cases were mishandled, or believe both things simultaneously.
The ledger does not require resolving that argument.
The accounting question is simpler.
Shelby County invoked one of Tennessee government’s strongest legal remedies against an elected official — twice.
Neither proceeding removed her.
The second generated litigation through two appellate courts before the county withdrew it shortly before trial, and a judge has now said Shelby County must reimburse at least some of the defense costs generated by that effort.
Taxpayers should be able to see one number for what the government spent pursuing removal, another for what it must pay the official who defended against it, and a final total showing what both unsuccessful attempts actually cost.
Behind the Reporting: Building the Halbert Ouster Cost Ledger
Paid subscribers get the two-case chronology, fee-law audit, cost-accounting framework, records requests and source documents behind this report.
The statute does not say “automatic reimbursement”
Tennessee Code §8-47-121 says:
