Earlier this year, Tennessee enacted the Reentry Success Act of 2021 into law.  The Reentry Success Act overhauls Tennessee’s parole laws, and it was designed to reform several components of the parole hearing process, parole determinations, and parole eligibility.

As soon as the Reentry Success Act took effect, however, the Tennessee Board of Parole began insisting that the Act would not be effective for a huge number of its beneficiaries. As grounds, Board of Parole staff attorney Rachel Hitt complained that “the Board does not have the ability or resources necessary to identify” those cases—part of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s PR-first, substance-last approach to criminal justice reform.  Accordingly, one inmate who was presumptively entitled to be released on parole under the Reentry Success Act of 2021 filed suit, seeking to compel the Board of Parole to comply with the law.

In a late Friday afternoon ruling, Davidson County Chancellor Anne C. Martin agreed that the Board of Parole had violated the Reentry Success Act of 2021.  “[T]he Court finds that the Board failed to adhere to the requirement of the Act, codified at Tenn. Code Ann. § 40- 35-503(i) and (j), when it denied [the Petitioner’s] June 23, 2021 request for a parole hearing earlier than July of 2022 and in reasonable proximity to his release eligibility date,” the Court’s ruling reads.  Accordingly, it is “ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED that Mr. Hughes’ petition is GRANTED and this matter is REMANDED to the Board of Parole with instructions to DETERMINE his release eligibility date and SET A PAROLE HEARING within sixty (60) days of that date.”

“The Board of Parole has long been Tennessee’s most disgraceful government agency, and the Lee Administration should be ashamed of its two-faced approach to criminal justice reform,” said attorney Daniel A. Horwitz, who represented Mr. Hughes with Horwitz Law, PLLC attorney Lindsay Smith.  “Laws are not suggestions—even for unqualified patronage appointees and others who draw taxpayer-funded salaries.  We look forward to reuniting Mr. Hughes with his family by Christmas.”

The Court’s September 24, 2021 ruling can be found here: https://horwitz.law/wp-content/uploads/21-0618-II-9-24-21-SIGNED.pdf

Background on the Reentry Success Act of 2021 and its presumption of parole for eligible inmates can be found here: https://horwitz.law/wp-content/uploads/Reentry-Success-Act-of-2021-White-Paper-DAH-7-1-21.pdf

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Daniel A. Horwitz is a Nashville based lawyer who represents clients across Tennessee.  He can be contacted at: [email protected]