In May, the federal government and Shelby County, Tennessee, reached a landmark settlement stopping the local prosecutor from enforcing a law that discriminates against people living with HIV.
Multiple states have created a new crime called “abortion trafficking,” which makes it illegal for adults to transport minors to get abortions without parental consent. Others are trying to restrict abortion medications or out-of-state travel.
Late last year, the U.S. Department of Justice warned the state of Tennessee that its “aggravated prostitution” statute—which makes it a felony to engage in sex work while HIV positive—violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Activists hope the measure shows how the government can use the ADA to fight ableism around the nation.
On Election Day, voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont will decide whether to close loopholes in their state constitutions allowing the forced labor of incarcerated people.
Leaving prison often hinges on completing rehabilitative programming. The pandemic caused many of these required courses to be put on hold.
Sterling Higgins died in a Tennessee jail in 2019 after officers pinned him to the floor. Two new medical experts’ reports describe the incident as homicide.
Sterling Higgins called 911 in March 2019 seeking help during a mental health crisis. Police took him to Obion County Jail, where he died after officers pinned him to a floor.
Attorneys say the prosecution’s theory of the murder case was ‘concocted out of whole cloth’ and based on ‘outdated racial stereotyping.’
A federal lawsuit alleges lack of due process in a rural Tennessee county, and reform advocates say its jail is hardly an outlier.
Across the country, the death penalty is in steep decline. But in September, the state’s attorney general sought execution dates for nine men, and its Supreme Court set dates for two of them.
The legislation also makes it illegal for many ex-offenders to be alone with their own children.
Vindication and compensation remain elusive for Tennessee’s wrongly convicted, in part because of the state’s parole board.
The Department of Justice is leaving Shelby County, but discrimination against Black children in court continues, a federal monitor says.
In The Princess Bride, Prince Humperdinck has Wesley strapped to a device known as The Machine, which has a lever that can be raised from 1 to 50. When the lever is turned to 1, the machine sucks away one year of the victim’s life, with each tick of the lever corresponding to another year taken away. […]
The evening of August 6th, 2004, 16-year old Cyntoia Brown shot and killed Johnny Allen, a 43-year-old Nashville resident who picked her up for sex. It was an act of self defense, she explained to police later; after Allen took her to his house, he showed Cyntoia multiple guns, including shotguns and rifles. Later in bed, as she described in court, he grabbed her violently by the genitals, his demeanor became threatening and, fearing for her life, she took a gun out of her purse and shot him.
State law makes it easier to throw Brown away than consider traumas youth face and offer them hope of rehabilitation.
“Kiss your boyfriend goodbye.”
Nearly 70 victims of domestic violence and rape in Memphis are wearing GPS devices thanks to the city’s Sexual Assault Kit Taskforce, according to its monthly progress report published in October. The taskforce was created by the mayor’s office in 2014 after revelations that the Memphis Police Department had failed to test more than 12,000 rape kits. […]
Do these so-called “john schools” actually hurt women more than help them?
The price of shoplifting at Wal-Mart isn’t always low.
If there’s a chance you could wind up in jail, you have the right to an attorney whether or not you can afford one. The U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmedand clarified this right more than once, in doing so making clear that it applies to both misdemeanor and felony offenses. Yet in Nashville, Tennessee, defendants in misdemeanor courts aren’t […]
The Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee ruled recently that District Attorney General Robert Carter’s office improperly use a peremptory challenge during jury selection to prevent a black woman from serving on a jury. As a result, the court threw out Collins’ conviction and sentence.