Tag Archives: Constitutional Law

White County Judge Acknowledges Sterilization-For-Jailtime Deal Still Active; Plaintiffs Seek to Terminate the Program

Constitutional Law,

After a furious national uproar in response to an inmate sterilization program instituted by White County General Sessions Judge Sam Benningfield, in late July of this year, Judge Benningfield publicly announced that he had formally rescinded his previous standing order instituting the sterilization program, which had been compared to eugenics.  Although dozens of inmates had been surgically sterilized by the time the order was “rescinded,” news coverage of the scandal subsided immediately, permitting the fallout from the sterilization program to continue virtually uncovered.

In a recent filing, however, Judge Benningfield and White County Sheriff Oddie Shoupe—who are currently being sued over the sterilization program—acknowledged that the order purporting to rescind the program actually “did not renege on the offer of a 30-day reduction in the jail sentence[s]” of inmates who agreed to be sterilized after all.  This concession confirms concerns that had been raised by the attorney for the inmates who have sued over the program, whose lawsuit alleged that:

“Despite claiming to be an ‘Order Rescinding [his May 15, 2017] Standing Order,’ however, Defendant Benningfield’s July 26, 2017 Supplemental Order states unequivocally that inmates who fail to ‘demonstrate[] to the court their desire to improve their situations and take serious and considered steps toward their rehabilitation by having the [specified long-term surgical sterilization] procedures or agreeing to have same’ will still be incarcerated for 30 days longer than similarly situated inmates who do acquiesce to surgical sterilization.”

Judge Benningfield and Sheriff Shoupe, who have both been named as defendants in the lawsuit over the sterilization program, have asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit against them.  In response to their concession that the inmate sterilization offer is still active, however, on Monday, the Plaintiffs sought an immediate declaratory judgment that Judge Benningfield’s ongoing sterilization program is unconstitutional.  “This program is outrageous, it is morally indefensible, and it’s illegal,” attorney Daniel Horwitz, who is representing the inmates, stated at the outset of the lawsuit.  Selected documents from the case are available below:

Selected Case Documents:

–Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief

–Defendants’ Notice of Removal

–Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss

–Plaintiffs’ Response in Opposition to Motion to Dismiss

–Plaintiffs’ Motion to Certify State Law Claims

–Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment

–Plaintiffs’ Motion for Estoppel Based on Defendant Benningfield’s Public Reprimand

–Defendants’ Response in Opposition to Estoppel Based on Defendant Benningfield’s Public Reprimand

–Defendants’ Response in Opposition to Partial Summary Judgment

–Plaintiffs’ Reply to Defendants’ Response in Opposition to Partial Summary Judgment

Selected Media Coverage:

-The Washington Post: Tennessee judge reprimanded for offering reduced jail time in exchange for sterilization

-The Tennessean: 2nd lawsuit challenges Tennessee county’s inmate birth control practice

-WSMV Channel 4: Judge under scrutiny for offering reduced sentences for vasectomies, birth control implants

-BBC News: ‘We were guinea pigs’: Jailed inmates agreed to birth control

-ScotBlog: Lawsuit Seeks to End White County’s Ongoing Sterilization Program

 

Slate: If the Supreme Court thinks nonmembers can’t be compelled to pay union fees, then unions can’t be compelled to represent nonmembers.

Constitutional Law, First Amendment, , ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz:

Late last month, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear Janus v. AFSCME, a case that challenges public-sector unions’ right to collect fees from nonmembers. Such “fair share” fees have been a legal bedrock of labor unions since the Supreme Court’s 1977 ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.  In Abood, the court held that unions could lawfully charge fees to non–union members to help offset the costs of “collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment” from which all employees benefit, as long as the union does not use such fees for political purposes.  Continue reading Slate: If the Supreme Court thinks nonmembers can’t be compelled to pay union fees, then unions can’t be compelled to represent nonmembers. →

Lawsuit Seeks to End White County’s Ongoing Sterilization Program

Constitutional Law, ,

An inmate in White County, Tennessee, has filed a lawsuit in White County Chancery Court seeking to put an end to an ongoing sterilization program instituted by White County General Sessions Judge Sam Benningfield.  Under the program, White County inmates who refuse to submit to long-term surgical sterilization are required to serve jail sentences that are 30 days longer than similarly situated inmates who agree to be sterilized.  The lawsuit—filed directly against Judge Benningfield and the White County Sheriff—asks the Chancery Court to declare Judge Benningfield’s sterilization program unconstitutional and prevent the Sheriff from enforcing it.

“This program is outrageous, it is morally indefensible, and it’s illegal,” said attorney Daniel Horwitz, who is representing the inmate.  “We fully expect the Chancery Court to put an end to this abusive and reprehensible program and ensure that it never returns again.”

“Eugenics is illegal in Tennessee and across the United States,” the lawsuit reads.  “Tennessee law provides absolutely no authority to institute or enforce such a program, and both the Tennessee Constitution and the United States Constitution forbid it.  From mass sterilizations in Nazi Germany to eugenics experimentation in Tuskegee, Alabama, eugenics is anathema to any conception of morality and represents one of the most disturbing chapters in the dark history of human cruelty.  Judge Benningfield’s eugenics program should be—and must be—declared illegal and permanently enjoined as a result.”

Judge Benningfield’s sterilization program gained national attention after White County District Attorney Bryant Dunaway expressed concerns about the program’s rank illegality and immorality to a reporter in July 2017.  Thereafter, Judge Benningfield partially rescinded his standing order in response to national outcry.  Because Judge Benningfield’s supplemental order still provides that inmates who refuse to be sterilized must serve sentences that are 30 days longer than those who agree to surgical sterilization, however, the program is still ongoing.

In addition to asking the Court to declare the program unconstitutional, the lawsuit seeks to “[e]njoin the Defendants from subjecting the Plaintiff to an additional 30 days of incarceration for exercising his constitutional right to reproductive freedom.”  It further asks the Court to award the Plaintiff attorney’s fees and have the fee award “donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Tuskegee History Center.”

Selected media coverage regarding the program appears below:

-Judge under scrutiny for offering reduced sentences for vasectomies, birth control implants

-White County Inmates Given Reduced Jail Time If They Get Vasectomy

–‘We were guinea pigs’: Jailed inmates agreed to birth control

–Tennessee judge rescinds inmate sterilization-for-freedom program

Judge to inmates: Get sterilized and I’ll shave off jail time

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Breaking: Foreign Vanderbilt Law School Graduate Wins Right to Take the Tennessee Bar Exam

Constitutional Law, ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

Maximiliano Gluzman, the “obviously very, very qualified” Vanderbilt Law School graduate who was denied the opportunity even to take the Tennessee Bar Exam, has officially won his case before the Tennessee Supreme Court.  Based on the Court’s order approving his petition, Mr. Gluzman will be able to take the upcoming bar exam scheduled for February 2018.

“We conclude that the requirements of section 7.01 should not be applied to preclude Mr. Gluzman from taking the Tennessee bar examination,” the Court held in a per curiam order.  “As a result, the BLE may not hereafter rely upon section 7.01 of Rule 7 as a basis to deny Mr. Gluzman permission to take the Tennessee bar examination.”  The Court’s order is available here.

“We are ecstatic that the Tennessee Supreme Court has vindicated Mr. Gluzman’s claim that he was wrongfully denied the opportunity to take the Tennessee Bar Exam,” said Daniel Horwitz, Mr. Gluzman’s attorney.  “Mr. Gluzman is as qualified to practice law as any attorney in Tennessee, and he will be a tremendous asset to the legal profession.  Justice was served today.”

The briefing in Gluzman v. BLE featured the participation of three leading national conservative groups, which argued that the Board’s crippling regulations violated Mr. Gluzman’s fundamental right to earn a living free from irrational government overreach.  Tennessee’s two flagship law schools—Vanderbilt Law School and the University of Tennessee College of Law—also filed petitions in the case after seeing students disenroll from their law programs once the Board began implementing its protectionist regulations.  All parties’ briefs from the case are available below.

–Petitioner Maximilano Gluzman’s Principal Brief

–Brief of Respondent the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners

–Petitioner Maximiliano Gluzman’s Reply Brief

–Brief of Amici Curiae The Beacon Center, Cato Institute, and Goldwater Institute

–Petition of Vanderbilt Law School and University of Tennessee College of Law

Selected news coverage about the ruling is available at the following links:

-Nashville Post: Supreme Court rules Argentine can take Tennessee Bar

-Bloomberg: Argentine LL.M. With 3.9 GPA Wins Bid to Take Tenn. Bar Exam

-Nashville Post: Argentine lawyer challenging Tennessee Board of Law Examiners

-Nashville Post: National conservative groups join local bar fight

-Above the Law: State Bars Foreign Student From Bar Exam — Next Stop, State Supreme Court

-ABA Journal: Vanderbilt law prof who taught Argentine LLM student backs his bid to take the bar exam

-The Tennessean: How Tennessee discriminated against a talented Vanderbilt law grad

-Cato At Liberty Blog: Even Lawyers Have the Right to Earn an Honest Living

-Beacon Center Blog: Banned From the Bar Exam

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Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Holds Comprehensive Hearing on Civil Asset Forfeiture

Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Fourth Amendment, ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

In what may well have been the most comprehensive hearing on civil asset forfeiture ever held, the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held a day-long hearing on Tennessee’s forfeiture laws at the Nashville Public Library on Monday, July 24th.  The hearing featured testimony from District Attorneys past and present, police officers, legislators, attorneys, scholars, local and national advocacy groups, individuals affected by Tennessee’s forfeiture laws, and others interested in the topic.  Video footage of the Committee’s hearing is available at the links that follow:

U.S. Commission Opening Remarks and Introduction

Panel 1—Law Enforcement

Panelists: Glenn R. Funk (District Attorney, Nashville and Davidson County);  D. Michael Dunavant (District Attorney, Tennessee’s 25th Judicial District, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee); Stephen D. Crump (District Attorney, Tennessee’s 10th Judicial District); Carlos Lara (Lieutenant, Metro Nashville Police Department)

Panel 2—Legislators

Panelists: State Representative Mike Carter (R-Ooltewah); State Representative John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville); State Representative William G. Lamberth (R-Cottontown); State Representative Martin Daniel (R-Knoxville); State Representative Harold M. Love, Jr. (D-Nashville); State Representative G.A. Hardaway (D-Memphis)

Panel 3—National and State Organizations

Panelists: Vikrant Reddy (Senior Research Fellow, Charles Koch Institute); Lee McGrath (Senior Legislative Counsel, Institute for Justice); Hedy Weinberg (Executive Director, ACLU of Tennessee); Julie Warren (State Director, Tennessee/Kentucky Right on Crime)

Panel 4—Practitioners and Academics

Panelists: George Frank Lannom (Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers);  Joy Radice (Professor of Law, University of Tennessee College of Law); John Morris Miles (Attorney, Union City); Ben Raybin (Attorney, Nashville); Kyle Mothershead (Attorney, Nashville); Elliot Ozment (Attorney, Nashville)

Panel 5—Advocacy Organizations

Panelists: Jackie Sims (Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP); Christopher M. Bellamy (President, Napier-Looby Bar Association); Samuel Lester (Street Outreach and Advocacy Coordinator, Open Table Nashville)

The hearing record will remain open for public comment until August 23, 2017.  If you would like to submit comments for consideration, please email Jeff Hinton, Southern Regional Director for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, at [email protected].  Following the conclusion of the public comment period, the Tennessee Advisory Committee will consider all commentary and prepare a final report and recommendation.

Selected press coverage of the hearing is available below.

-Fox 17:  Tenn. Attorneys say law enforcement wrongfully benefits from drug seizures

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Update: White County Judge Rescinds Sterilization Order…Sort of

Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

Last week, news broke of White County General Sessions Judge Sam Benningfield’s wildly unconstitutional standing order that White County inmates who declined to submit to sterilization would receive an additional 30 days in jail.  In an order dated July 26, 2017, Judge Benningfield has formally rescinded his prior order with the caveat that he will still be handing out a eugenics discount to anyone who “demonstrate[s] to the court their desire to improve their situations” by being sterilized.

Even as partially rescinded, however, Judge Benningfield’s policy of determining the length of an inmate’s sentence based on whether the inmate has agreed to submit to sterilization remains illegal.  As previously explained:

 In America, reproductive freedom is a fundamental constitutional right, and the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution forbids the government from treating people differently based on whether or not they choose to exercise their right to reproductive freedom.  Tennessee’s criminal code also contains several specifically-designated mitigating factors and enhancement factors that judges are permitted to consider during sentencing.  Whether a defendant has submitted to sterilization is not among them.

White County’s backdoor eugenics program needs to be terminated in its entirety.  The program is a moral outrage and a blight on the entire legal profession.  Nobody—and certainly no member of the Bar—should tolerate it.  If Judge Benningfield will not resign his office, he should be removed.

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All Briefs Are Now Filed In the Case of the “Obviously Very, Very Qualified” Vanderbilt Law Student Prevented from Taking Bar Exam

Constitutional Law, Tennessee Constitutional Law, , ,

By Daniel Horwitz:

Briefing is officially complete in Gluzman v. Tennessee Board of Law Examiners—the case of the “obviously very, very qualified” Vanderbilt Law School student who graduated Vanderbilt with an eye-popping 3.919 GPA but was still denied even the opportunity to take the Tennessee bar exam because he earned his undergraduate degree and his first law degree in his birth country of Argentina.  The case is now awaiting a ruling from the Tennessee Supreme Court.

While his case has been pending, Mr. Gluzman took and passed the New York bar exam on his first attempt.  However, rather than uprooting his family unnecessarily, he still hopes to be able to take the bar exam in Tennessee and practice law near his wife’s business in Memphis.

The briefing in Gluzman v. BLE features the involvement of three leading national conservative groups, which have argued that the Board’s crippling regulations violate Mr. Gluzman’s fundamental right to earn a living free from irrational government overreach.  Tennessee’s two flagship law schools—Vanderbilt Law School and the University of Tennessee College of Law—also filed petitions in the case after seeing students disenroll from their law programs once the Board began implementing its new protectionist regulations.  All parties’ briefs in the case are available below.

–Petitioner Maximilano Gluzman’s Principal Brief

–Brief of Respondent the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners

–Petitioner Maximiliano Gluzman’s Reply Brief

–Brief of Amici Curiae The Beacon Center, Cato Institute, and Goldwater Institute

–Petition of Vanderbilt Law School and University of Tennessee College of Law

Mr. Gluzman’s battle against the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners has attracted national media attention due in part to the Board’s refusal to permit Mr. Gluzman and other lawyers “from the vast majority of countries around the world” from ever being able to take the Tennessee bar exam regardless of their qualifications.  In Mr. Gluzman’s case, the Board’s policy is also particularly difficult to justify, because the Board itself has formally acknowledged that Mr. Gluzman is “obviously a very, very qualified person.”  Selected news coverage about the case is available below.

-Nashville Post: Argentine lawyer challenging Tennessee Board of Law Examiners

-Nashville Post: National conservative groups join local bar fight

-Above the Law: State Bars Foreign Student From Bar Exam — Next Stop, State Supreme Court

-ABA Journal: Vanderbilt law prof who taught Argentine LLM student backs his bid to take the bar exam

-The Tennessean: How Tennessee discriminated against a talented Vanderbilt law grad

-Cato At Liberty Blog: Even Lawyers Have the Right to Earn an Honest Living

-Beacon Center Blog: Banned From the Bar Exam

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Nashville Scene: “The Tennessee Supreme Court Keeps Reversing Itself, and Criminal Defense Attorneys Are Worried”

Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Tennessee Constitutional Law, , ,

Via Stephen Elliot, The Nashville Scene: (link)

In 2012, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that a defendant who pleads guilty to a crime can appeal the judgment if exculpatory evidence is discovered later.

Four years later, the same court changed its mind.

What occurred in the intervening four years to necessitate such a pivot by the state’s highest court? Nothing, according to Justice Sharon G. Lee.

. . . .

“Since 2014, the Tennessee Supreme Court has aggressively sought to federalize Tennessee law by striking down state-specific protections that prior iterations of the court had developed under Tennessee’s state constitution and civil rules,” says Daniel Horwitz, a Nashville attorney and the editor of ScotBlog, a website devoted to the state Supreme Court. “A few significant state-level protections still remain. However, given that prior precedent — no matter how recent or firmly established — has had virtually no influence on the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decisions to overturn its previous rulings, it stands to reason that these protections are vulnerable to being abandoned as well.”

Read more: http://www.nashvillescene.com/news/features/article/20857900/the-tennessee-supreme-court-keeps-reversing-itself-and-criminal-defense-attorneys-are-worried

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Jason Bryant Statement on Recent Coverage Regarding Lillelid Murders

Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, ,

In the weeks leading up to a scheduled hearing on her petition for resentencing, Ms. Karen Howell—one of the co-defendants who pleaded guilty to the Lillelid murders—along with her co-defendant, Ms. Natasha Cornett, released a pair of lengthy, self-serving statements that several media outlets have since published unedited and without verification.  The Greene County District Attorney’s Office and its agents have since responded to those statements with statements to the media of their own.

Jason Bryant, the then-14-year-old child who has also filed a petition for resentencing on account of his being a juvenile at the time of his offense, has not sought to comment publicly on the case.  However, in response to the recent, prejudicial coverage relating to his upcoming proceedings, Daniel Horwitz, lead counsel for Jason Bryant, has released the following statement on Mr. Bryant’s behalf:

_______________

My heart breaks for the Lillelid family, which suffered what can only be described as a horrific and unspeakable tragedy.  It is, however, highly inappropriate for Karen Howell, Natasha Cornett, the Greene County District Attorney’s Office, or any other party involved in this case to attempt to litigate disputed legal issues through the media.  Those attempts have seriously prejudiced Jason Bryant’s right to a fair proceeding, and they will likely necessitate a change of venue when his hearing takes place.

Although Rule 3.6(a) of the Rules of Professional Conduct strongly counsels against public comment in cases like this, Rule 3.6(c) includes an exception permitting attorneys to make public statements when it becomes necessary to correct a misimpression in the public record due to “the substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity not initiated by the lawyer or the lawyer’s client.”  Consequently, the purpose of this statement is to correct three such misimpressions.

First, Mr. Bryant did not shoot anyone, and no jury has ever determined that he did.

Second, former District Attorney General Berkeley Bell’s statement that “the co-defendants blamed the shooting on Bryant because he was the youngest of the group” is accurate, as is his statement that “Bryant wasn’t part of the group.”  In contrast, Karen Howell’s and Natasha Cornett’s self-serving statements assigning Jason Bryant the blame for the Lillelids’ murders are not.  When Jason Bryant’s adult co-defendants discovered that Mr. Bryant—who was the only outsider to the otherwise closely-knit group, and who was also the youngest member of the group by far—was actually a juvenile who had pretended to be significantly older than he was, one of his adult co-defendants instructed him that he had to take responsibility for the Lillelids’ slayings.  That individual then pointed a gun at Mr. Bryant, shot him in the hand, and threatened to kill him if he did not.  Mr. Bryant still has visible scars from this event where the bullet went through his hand and entered his leg.

Third, Mr. Bryant was threatened and coerced into joining the group plea bargain to life without the possibility of parole against his will and against his clear legal interests.  Jason Bryant was just a fourteen-year-old child at the time of the Lillelids’ murders, and thus, he was not eligible for the death penalty on account of his being a juvenile.  As such, Mr. Bryant gained nothing from accepting a group plea bargain to a life sentence without the possibility of parole, which served only to spare his adult co-defendants the death penalty.

It is our position that these facts and the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Eighth Amendment jurisprudence establishing that it is nearly categorically unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life without the possibility of parole entitle Mr. Bryant to a new sentencing hearing.  These issues, however, must be decided in a court of law, rather than in the court of public opinion.  Accordingly, this will be Mr. Bryant’s first and only public statement on this case.  We ask that the parties and the media respect the judicial process and refrain from further prejudicing Mr. Bryant’s right to a fair proceeding going forward.

_______________

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Metro Drops “Obscene Bumper Sticker” Citation Against Dustin Owens; Concedes Bumper Sticker Is Protected By the First Amendment

Constitutional Law, First Amendment, , ,

Nashville, Tennessee, March 13, 2017—In response to a lawsuit filed by Dustin Owens after he was cited for displaying what his arresting officer claimed was an “obscene bumper sticker,” lawyers for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department have conceded that “Mr. Owens is correct that the bumper sticker at issue does not fit the criteria of ‘obscene and patently offensive’ as those terms are defined in Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-187 and under relevant First Amendment jurisprudence.”  As a result, Metro has agreed to dismiss Mr. Owens’ citation, and it will also submit to a declaratory judgment that the bumper sticker at issue “is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”  Under the parties’ settlement agreement, Metro will also pay for the costs of Mr. Owens’ lawsuit.

Mr. Owens’ resounding legal victory comes after extensive local and national media coverage of his arrest for displaying the following crass but comical bumper sticker:

Said Daniel Horwitz, Mr. Owens’ lead counsel: “The statute under which Mr. Owens was cited is facially unconstitutional.  Hard-core censorship of this nature also has no place in a free society.  We’re ecstatic about this victory, and we appreciate Metro’s prompt concession that the position taken by Mr. Owens’ arresting officer was nakedly meritless.”

Added David L. Hudson, Jr., who also represented Mr. Owens in the lawsuit: “Mr. Owens’ bumper sticker is clearly protected speech, a form of parody, and not remotely close to obscenity.  I applaud Dustin’s courage in challenging his unconstitutional citation, and I am proud to have represented him.”

Mr. Owens’ Complaint against the MNPD and his Application for a Temporary Injunction are available here and here, respectively.  The individuals referenced in this release will be available for further comment at [email protected] and [email protected] once the parties’ settlement agreement has been approved by the Court.

Selected media coverage regarding the case is available at the following links:

Selected Media Coverage:

-Patch: Obscenity Charges Dropped In Nashville Stick Figure Sex Case

-Faultlines: Nashville Cops Hate Stick Figure Sex (and the First Amendment)

-Heat Street: Tennessee Cops Back Down on Fine For ‘Obscene’ Bumper Sticker of Stick Figures

-TechDirt: Driver Sues State After Receiving Ticket For ‘Obscene’ Stick Figure Vehicle Decal

Case Filings:

–Plaintiff’s Complaint

–Plaintiff’s Application for Temporary Injunction

*Order Granting Judgment to Plaintiff

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