11-9-2016 Tennessee:
Retroactive enforcement of Tennessee's sex offender registry law is being challenged in a federal court lawsuit that mimics a separate, successful appeal that led to the nullification of retroactive laws in Michigan.
The case, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Nashville, argues that Tennessee's registration laws are illegally applied retroactively. It notes that the laws and restrictions on those offenders have become significantly more burdensome since the laws were first enacted in 1994.
The first registry law deemed the register of sex offenders confidential and only accessible by law enforcement. The General Assembly tweaked the law multiple times, and made registrants public, and then overhauled it a decade later. Legislators added restrictions including in-person reporting and limits on where offenders could live and work.
Offenders cannot live or work within 1,000 feet of parks or educational institutions and state laws say those who committed crimes against minors cannot live with minors.
And the lawsuit says that in nearly every year since the 2004 overhaul, restrictions on sex offenders have increased and are now unreasonably applied to offenders like a man the lawsuit names as John Doe.
"The State of Tennessee has burdened him, retroactively, with an increasingly onerous and punitive registration law whose vague and arbitrary provisions and crushing criminal penalties enable and encourage law enforcement to treat him like a pariah and disrupt his and his family members’ lives at any moment, without warning or reason," the lawsuit reads.
In early 1994, before the state's first sex offender registry law, Doe pleaded no contest to two counts of attempted aggravated sexual battery involving his daughter, the lawsuit states. He completed a five-year probation term in 1999 and has not been convicted of a crime since, the lawsuit states. The man went to work as a pilot and then in property management.
But the lawsuit alleges Metro Nashville Police and U.S. Marshals showed up at Doe's house, harassing him though he was compliant. It says in 2011, police and Nashville prosecutors threatened to arrest and prosecute the man because he lived in a duplex next door to his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
Doe was kicked out of his house, the lawsuit says, while fighting in a Nashville court for the right to live in the duplex and have his own children come visit. Nashville Criminal Court Judge Seth Norman ruled in 2013 that the law's ban on residing with a minor did not include the duplex living arrangement nor overnight visits, court records show.
The lawsuit challenges the retroactive application of the registry laws, including those restrictions on contact with minors, work and residency. It argues those restrictions violate the due process clause of the 14th Amendment and a constitutional provision known as the ex post facto clause, which says laws cannot retroactively enact punishment on previously legal conduct.
It asks a federal judge to stop the state from enforcing those provisions against Doe and remove him from the registry, noting that he pleaded no contest before the registry even existed, Doe's lawyer, Ed Yarbrough, told The Tennessean on Wednesday.
A ruling in Doe's favor could have wide-sweeping impact on hundreds of other offenders, who would be able to use it to challenge their own terms of supervision and restrictions. The case was initially assigned to U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville.
The challenge in Michigan, decided earlier this year, could foreshadow a favorable ruling from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appeals district that includes Michigan and Tennessee. The lawsuit lists 10 cases in courts around the country that have recently declared retroactive enforcement of sex offender registries unconstitutional.
In the August appeals court ruling, the federal judges struck down a retroactive provision of Michigan's sex offender registry law, finding that it violated the ex post facto clause.
The Tennessee challenge names Gov. Bill Haslam and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn as defendants. TBI maintains the sex offender registry in Tennessee, but local law enforcement agencies handle registration and monitoring. TBI officials said they had not yet received the lawsuit and could not comment. A spokesman for the Tennessee Attorney General said the office just received the complaint and would not comment.
Though the number of people on the registry fluctuates, on Wednesday there were about 15,800 registered sex offenders in Tennessee, TBI officials said. ..Continued.. by Stacey Barchenger
Showing posts with label Lawsuit - TN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lawsuit - TN. Show all posts
November 9, 2016
Lawsuit challenges Tennessee sex offender registry
September 5, 2016
Inmates with hepatitis C sue Tennessee prison officials for treatment
Tennessee inmates infected with hepatitis C filed a federal lawsuit against state prison officials late Monday, asking the court to force the state to start treating all inmates who have the potentially deadly disease.
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocates in U.S. District Court in Nashville, says the Tennessee Department of Correction officials knowingly denying inmates care for their hepatitis C, also known as HCV, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. It alleges the department is denying care because the best available medication is too expensive.
"In reality, (department officials) ignore the medical needs of (inmates) and class members in order to save costs. (The department's) written policies for HCV diagnosis, assessment and treatment utilize outdated standards of care and normalize the practice of refusing treatment for unjust and medically unsound reasons," the lawsuit states.
Inmates Charles Graham, also known as Charles Stevenson, and Russell L. Davis are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Attorneys representing the inmates include Thomas Castelli, the ACLU-TN legal director; Karla Campbell of Nashville-based law firm Branstetter, Stranch and Jennings; and Elizabeth Logsdon of advocacy organization Disability Rights Tennessee. No Exceptions Prison Collective, an inmate advocacy organization, also helped compile the lawsuit.
"Incarcerating people under conditions that erode their health, safety and human dignity amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which not only has devastating long-term effects for those individuals, but which undermines the purported purpose of a rehabilitative criminal justice system," Castelli said in a news release.
They are seeking what's known as class-action status for the case: If successful, that would mean every inmate infected with hepatitis C also could be eligible to receive treatment in the future. The lawsuit names as defendants new department Commissioner Tony Parker, department Assistant Commissioner of Rehabilitative Services Dr. Marina Cadreche and department Medical Director Dr. Kenneth Williams.
In a statement, department spokeswoman Neysa Taylor defended the state's medical practices.
"The Tennessee Department of Correction is currently unaware of the referenced court filing but is confident the department is providing adequate medical care as determined by medical protocol," Taylor said in an email late Monday.
In the past, the department also has argued that it is adequately treating all inmates. But a Tennessean investigation earlier this year found that, as of March, nearly 3,500 inmates had hepatitis C while only eight were receiving treatment that could cure them. As of the end of June, the enormous disparity between those infected and those receiving treatment remains: There are 2,935 inmates with hepatitis C, while four are receiving the newest treatment, Taylor said. An additional inmate refused treatment, and three have completed the newest treatment, Taylor said.
Although infected inmates routinely leave and enter the Tennessee prison system, the change in number of inmates infected probably shows that at least several hundred inmates who remain infected have returned to their communities in the past few months. The department also doesn't test every inmate who enters the prison system. But of the 901 inmates tested in 2015, 424 tested positive for hepatitis C, Taylor previously told The Tennessean.
Advocates — including Jeannie Alexander, head of No Exceptions — say that means there are probably hundreds of other inmates with the disease who are not diagnosed.
"It is immoral and a violation of human rights and constitutional rights to knowingly refuse treatment to prisoners suffering from Hepatitis C when an effective treatment that has become the new standard of care is available," Alexander said in an emailed statement. ..Continued.. by Dave Boucher,
January 22, 2016
Murfreesboro man battles the courts to get named removed from the TN Sex Offender Registry
1-22-16 Tennessee:
A man who lives in Murfreesboro has appealed the Rutherford County Circuit Courts after learning that he has been labeled as a sex offender in the Sex Offender Registry. Matthew B. Foley is currently on the registry and listed as "Violent."
Recently released court documents show that 30 year old Foley was 16 years old when he was charged with conspiracy to commit rape and aggravated kidnapping in Rutherford County. He was later convicted for facilitation of especially aggravated kidnapping.
Looking back to 2001 when the crime took place, Foley and an adult, who is currently under indictment for aggravated rape and aggravated kidnapping - were riding around when they observed a 13 year-old girl that they did not know at the movie theater. Documents show they essentially grabbed the girl, drove her around Murfreesboro and ended up at Nice's Mill Dam. Once at the dam the adult allegedly took her out of the car and into the woods and raped her. Foley was not convicted of the rape, but only facilitation of especially aggravated kidnapping.
The courts noted that Foley's plea itself is not a sexual crime, and therefore the usual things are not mandatory, however he agreed that the judicial system would apply sexual offender treatment to his conviction.
The courts originally said the statute of limitations for Foley to file an appeal has already been reached. He asserted that the statute of limitations should be extended because he did not learn until well after its expiration that the State sought to enforce the provisions of the sexual offender registration act against him.
The Criminal Appeals Courts agreed to examine the case closer and have since reversed the dismissal of the case from moving forward. Therefore, Foley will have a second chance for post-conviction relief.
An evidentiary hearing will take place in the near future, which could ultimately mean that Foley's name will be removed from the Sex Offender Registry.
The courts released their opinion on the case Wednesday, January 20, 2016. ..Source.. by WGNS Radio
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