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Eight people on Tennessee’s legally troubled sex offender registry filed a federal class action lawsuit last week asking that thousands of people with decades-old convictions be removed from the registry.
The eight plaintiffs, who are using pseudonyms in the lawsuit, all have convictions from before or shortly after 2004, when the state’s current sex offender registry law, the Tennessee Sexual Offender and Violent Sexual Offender Registration, Verification, and Tracking Act, was passed. They are seeking class status for people on Tennessee’s sex offender registry whose convictions predate the law or one of its “later-enacted, punitive requirements.”
The lawsuit argues that the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s protection from retroactive punishment. Federal courts have repeatedly ruled against the state on that issue, Tennessee, “however, refuses to follow the law,” the lawsuit says.
“To date, the state has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money defending the retroactive application of its sex offender registry law against individuals who were convicted or pled guilty before the law existed, despite numerous courts holding that this violates the Constitution,” said Nashville attorney Ryan Davis, representing the plaintiffs.
Other attorneys for the plaintiffs are Jorie Zajicek, associate attorney at Ryan C. Davis Law, and Jeff Gibson and David Esquivel of Bass, Berry & Sims.
A class action differs from other lawsuits in that the person or people who are suing do so on behalf of a larger group of people, called a class, who have suffered a similar loss.
The plaintiffs estimate that there are thousands who match that description, and Davis said this is the only pending class action against Tennessee’s sex offender registry statutes that he is aware of. The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the state to remove the plaintiffs and the class members from the registry.
Before the lawsuit proceeds, a judge will first have to decide if a class action is appropriate and “certify” the proposed class.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, which represents the state in lawsuits, said the office is aware of the lawsuit and is reviewing the complaint but does not comment on pending litigation.
More:Tennessee’s legal struggles with its sex offender registry could cost taxpayers
How we got here
Tennessee’s first sex offender registry, created in 1994, was a private database used by law enforcement.
The 2004 law created a public-facing database that has been amended over the years into a “far-reaching structure for regulating the conduct and lifestyles of registered sexual offenders after their punishments were complete and, in many cases, for the rest of their lives,” according to U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger.
Registrants must follow residence, work and travel restrictions, including a prohibition against living or working within 1,000 feet of schools, day cares or public parks, as well as other restrictions.
U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson first ruled in February 2021 that those who committed a qualifying crime before the registry’s creation by the General Assembly in 2004 were subject to punishment that didn’t exist when they were convicted, which violates the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution.
After that, the state continued to suffer losses in court.
Things reached a tipping point in March of this year, when Trauger wrote in a decision that past rulings “definitely suggest” that “Tennessee’s policy of continuing to apply the Act to other individuals who committed pre-enactment offenses is unconstitutional.”
The state of Tennessee appealed Trauger’s decision to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March, arguing that placement on the sex offender registry is not punitive and thus not unconstitutional.
While that case has been pending, a flood of lawsuits by individuals on the registry have been filed in federal court. Those plaintiffs are generally able to get off the registry, at least temporarily, in a matter of weeks.
The 6th Circuit found in 2016 that Michigan’s sex offender registry law, which is similar to Tennessee’s, violated the ex post facto clause of the Constitution.
More:Prosecutors said she was a victim. She still had to register as a sex offender in Tennessee.
Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMealins.
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