Tag Archives: Tennessee Constitutional Law

Lawless idiots in Tennessee’s General Assembly threaten Nashville’s most respected trial judge and judicial independence itself

Constitutional Law, Judgments, Opinions,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

The Tennessee General Assembly is not exactly known for its constitutional literacy.  Its members famously—and proudly—attempt to violate the Constitution on a seemingly weekly basis, costing taxpayers tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars per case and millions of dollars each year when they succeed.

Historically, many have explained away Tennessee’s legislative spigot of unconstitutionality as just another manifestation of the General Assembly’s gleeful stupidity.  By coming after Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle, however—a veteran judge appointed by a Republican Governor, and one of Tennessee’s most widely respected jurists—the General Assembly has made clear that its routine incompetence is also paired with a large helping of malice toward constitutional constraints in general.  Disturbingly, though, while other legislative malpractice is typically remediable through judicial review, the Tennessee House GOP’s latest foray into lawless action is a direct assault on the separation of powers that threatens the independence of Tennessee’s judiciary itself.

The relevant background is as follows: In the summer of 2020, as Tennessee was being ravaged by a deadly pandemic that spread through in-person contact, several voters filed lawsuits in Davidson County Chancery Court seeking to expand absentee ballot access.  The combined lawsuits involved the following two distinct categories of plaintiffs who sued for the right to cast an absentee ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic:

(1) “persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19 and persons who are caretakers for persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19;” and

(2) “persons who neither have special vulnerability to COVID-19 nor are caretakers for persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19,” but who were nonetheless worried about the consequences of becoming infected with COVID-19 or spreading COVID-19 to others.

At the time the cases were pending before Chancellor Lyle, the State of Tennessee took the position that neither category of voters qualified to cast an absentee ballot under applicable Tennessee law.  Thus, the State defendants contended that both categories of voters would have to vote in person, or else, they would have to forgo their right to vote at all.

Upon review of the evidence before her, Chancellor Lyle ruled that “the State’s restrictive interpretation and application of Tennessee’s voting by mail law (Tennessee Code Annotated section 2-6-201), during the unique circumstances of the pandemic, constitutes an unreasonable burden on the fundamental right to vote guaranteed by the Tennessee Constitution.”  As a consequence, Chancellor Lyle ordered the State of Tennessee to permit both categories of voters to vote by absentee ballot during the 2020 elections.  Of some note, thirty-four states and the District of Columbia already allowed any voter to vote by absentee ballot during non-pandemic times, and virtually every jurisdiction other than Tennessee had taken significant additional steps to accommodate pandemic circumstances.  Tennessee has also long permitted no-excuse absentee ballot voting for certain favored categories of voters, such as voters who are “sixty years of age or older.”  Those responsible for selectively slicing and dicing absentee ballot access in this way can presumably explain why.

Unhappy with being ordered to expand absentee ballot eligibility to vulnerable voters, their caretakers, and others during a pandemic, the governmental defendants in the case did two things after Chancellor Lyle ruled against them.  First, they asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to take up and review Chancellor Lyle’s order immediately.  Second, they violated her order in material respects, prompting Chancellor Lyle to state—apparently unforgivably—“shame on you.”

While the State’s appeal was pending before the Tennessee Supreme Court, the State defendants—through the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office—abruptly reversed course as to whether the first category of voters listed above was qualified to vote by absentee ballot under existing law.  Specifically, during oral argument before the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office adopted the irreconcilable and novel position that “persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19 and persons who are caretakers for persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19” already qualified to vote by absentee ballot under the following two provisions of Tennessee law:

(C) The person is hospitalized, ill or physically disabled, and because of such condition, the person is unable to appear at the person’s polling place on election day; or

(D) The person is a caretaker of a hospitalized, ill or disabled person[.]

Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-6-201(5)(C) and (D) (2014 & Supp. 2019).

Two aspects of this concession are worthy of emphasis.  The first is that it is not the position that the State of Tennessee took while the case was before Chancellor Lyle.  The second is that it is not actually what the law says.  Simply put: Fear of becoming “hospitalized, ill or physically disabled” is not the same thing as being “hospitalized, ill or physically disabled.”  Because forcing vulnerable people to take on a genuine risk of death in order to vote would be an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, though—precisely what Chancellor Lyle had ruled—the State defendants and the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office opted to change state law unilaterally in order to avoid an adverse constitutional ruling.  Of note, months later, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery—who is not famous for honesty—would go on to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to void the entire U.S. Presidential election on the basis that certain other states had done the same thing.

Upon review, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a partially unanimous and partially split opinion.  To begin, given the State’s above “concession” during oral argument regarding the first category of medically vulnerable voters and their caretakers, the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously agreed that such voters could vote by absentee ballot.  In particular, the Tennessee Supreme Court’s opinion stated:

At oral argument before this Court, the State conceded that, under its interpretation of Tennessee Code Annotated section 2-6-201(5)(C) and (D), persons who have underlying medical or health conditions which render them more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 or at greater risk should they contract it (“persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19”), as well as those who are caretakers for persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19, already are eligible to vote absentee by mail. We hold that injunctive relief is not necessary with respect to such plaintiffs and persons. We instruct the State to ensure that appropriate guidance, consistent with the State’s acknowledged interpretation, is provided to Tennessee registered voters with respect to the eligibility of such persons to vote absentee by mail in advance of the November 2020 election.

Thus, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that Chancellor Lyle’s injunction compelling that result was no longer necessary given the State’s modified position, which fully conceded the issue.

Next, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a 4-1 ruling that the second category of voters—those who did not have special vulnerabilities to COVID-19—could not vote absentee, because four Justices determined that the burden that COVID-19 imposed on healthy voters’ right to vote was not unreasonable.  Accordingly, a majority of the Court reversed Chancellor Lyle’s ruling with respect to “persons who neither have special vulnerability to COVID-19 nor are caretakers for persons with special vulnerability to COVID-19” alone.

Now seven months later, dozens of Republican members of Tennessee’s House of Representatives not only remain upset with Chancellor Lyle’s order—they seek to remove her from her office because of it.  The reason?  An allegation of judicial overreach.  Specifically, State Rep. Tim Rudd—the Resolution’s main sponsor—contends:

“The U.S. Constitution plainly states ‘The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations’ (Article I, section 4),’ Rudd said. “The last time I looked, the words, ‘Judiciary having the power to hold elections’ was [sic] not in the U.S. Constitution or the Tennessee State Constitution.”

Again, two matters are worthy of emphasis.  The first is that Representative Rudd appears to be unfamiliar with what actually occurred during the litigation before Chancellor Lyle, because the scope of Article I, section 4—an issue that the United States Supreme Court recently declined to review—was not even presented in the case.  Readers will search the Tennessee Supreme Court’s opinion in vain for any reference to it.  The reason?  Chancellor Lyle’s order was a ruling that a Tennessee election law abridged a constitutional right as applied to pandemic circumstances—a ruling that is not even theoretically in conflict with Article I, section 4.  By contrast, what the Tennessee Attorney General and the State defendants in the case did—abruptly change the meaning of state election law during the middle of litigation without any legislative approval or supporting statutory basis for doing so—may well have contravened Article I, section 4.  Consequently, if that is Representative Rudd’s concern, then he is attempting to remove the wrong public officials from office.

The second matter is that seeking to remove a judge from office because the judge ruled that a state statute is unconstitutional is, itself, unconstitutional.  If removal were permitted under these circumstances, the result “would be monstrous and wholly abhorrent to fundamental ideas of justice and judicial independence,” and “the judiciary would no longer be an independent and co-ordinate branch of the government, but a mere servile dependency.”  That is not the author’s characterization.  It is what the Supreme Court of Tennessee ruled regarding the Tennessee Constitution’s removal provision in 1899, when it clearly and unmistakably held that the General Assembly would be forbidden from removing a judge on the basis that the judge “had declared unconstitutional a particular enactment of the legislature.”  See McCulley v. State (State Report Title: The Judges’ Cases), 102 Tenn. 509, 53 S.W. 134, 138 (1899).

Instead, judges may only be removed for valid legal cause, such as misconduct in office.  See, e.g., In re Dender, 571 S.W.2d 491, 492 (Tenn. 1978) (“Article VI, Sec. 6[ ] provides sanctions to be applied against a judge guilty of official misconduct.”); Tenn. Op. Att’y Gen. No. 93-21 (Mar. 12, 1993) (“Removal under Article VI, Section 6 must be for cause, affecting the judge personally or the administration of his office. This requirement prohibits the possibility of arbitrary removals.”) (citation omitted).  In 1987, the Tennessee Supreme Court also expressly reaffirmed that “the removal contemplated by Article VI, section 6 [must be] for cause affecting the official personally or the administration of his office, to be effected after notice and trial.”  In re Murphy, 726 S.W.2d 509, 513 (Tenn. 1987).  And while other (Republican) judges’ actual misconduct in office has curiously been ignored by the General Assembly, at least where Chancellor Lyle is concerned, no such misconduct has even plausibly been alleged.

Put another way: The claim that Chancellor Lyle violated any law at all is not a serious one.  She adjudicated a legal dispute that was brought to her, which is what judges do.  On appeal, the State of Tennessee outright conceded part of what she ruled, and the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a split opinion reversing her ruling on another aspect of the case.  Unsurprisingly, given the importance of an independent judiciary, removal under these circumstances is not only improper—it is illegal.

Neither is Representative Rudd’s apparent upset about Chancellor Lyle tsk-tsking the State defendants for violating her order a removable offense.  Up until the moment of reversal, Chancellor Lyle’s orders were indisputably valid, and the parties in the case were obligated to follow them.  As the Tennessee Supreme Court has made clear many times: “An order is not rendered void or unlawful simply because it is erroneous or subject to reversal on appeal.  Erroneous orders must be followed until they are reversed.” Konvalinka v. Chattanooga-Hamilton Cnty. Hosp. Authority, 249 S.W.3d 346, 355 (Tenn. 2008) (citations omitted).  Nonetheless, the State defendants did not comply with her orders.  The legal term for this is “contempt.”  For reasons that are frankly inexplicable, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office and governmental defendants also routinely violate or otherwise fail to comply with court orders.  Thus, if anything, consequences far more severe than the words “shame on you” were warranted.

In summary: Representative Rudd and his clown car are not only, yet again, attempting something that is constitutionally forbidden—they are threatening the independence of Tennessee’s judiciary in the process.  This threat is intolerable and unacceptable.  Their lawless behavior should be condemned by anyone who cares about judicial independence, the Constitution, or the most basic tenets of the rule of law as a consequence.

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Happy 1-3-121 Day to (Almost) All Tennesseans!

Constitutional Law, Tennessee Constitutional Law, ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

Few would disagree that the government shouldn’t be permitted to act illegally.  In a frighteningly large number of instances, though—due to outmoded doctrines like sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, and absolute immunity for certain government officials—the government can act illegally without experiencing legal consequences for doing so.  The result of that legal construct is that government officials are often free to violate state statutes or provisions of the Tennessee Constitution and the U.S. Constitution without risk, leaving those who are victimized by governmental misconduct unable to do anything about it.

Happily, in 2018, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a little-noticed law that has had profound practical effects.  Codified at Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121, it provides that:

“Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, a cause of action shall exist under this chapter for any affected person who seeks declaratory or injunctive relief in any action brought regarding the legality or constitutionality of a governmental action.  A cause of action shall not exist under this chapter to seek damages.”

As a result of Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121, it is now possible for victims of governmental misconduct in Tennessee to obtain certain forms of relief—specifically, declaratory judgments and injunctions—regarding illegal or unconstitutional governmental actions.  And obtain relief under Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121 they have.  As a few examples:

1.  Tennessee’s Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, Registry of Election Finance has been permanently enjoined from enforcing an unconstitutional law that allowed partisan political action committees to participate in the political process just before an election, while prohibiting non-partisan political action committees from doing the same.

2.  Metro Nashville and its ex-Director of Schools have been permanently enjoined from enforcing a contractual gag order against dissenting School Board Members that prevented them from criticizing the ex-Director of Schools—a provision that was also declared illegal as a violation of the First Amendment and multiple state provisions.

3.  A criminal law that exclusively prohibited “false” statements about political candidates—including satire and parody—in campaign literature has been declared unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

4.  The Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners has been permanently enjoined from enforcing a law that prevented a man from working as a barber solely because he did not have a high school diploma.  And:

5.  The State of Tennessee has been permanently enjoined from implementing a selectively-targeted school voucher law in violation of the Home Rule provision of the Tennessee Constitution.

These examples are not exhaustive.  For example, a lawsuit is presently pending under Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121 to enjoin notorious private prison operator CoreCivic from systematically refusing to maintain a constitutionally adequate level of inmate safety and systematically failing to provide inmates constitutionally adequate health care at its scandal-prone Trousdale Turner Correctional Center.  Additionally, even failed lawsuits—like a lawsuit filed by the Tennessee Democratic Party and U.S. Senate candidate Marquita Bradshaw regarding public records access—have been adjudicated on their merits due to Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121, rather than being dismissed upfront based on the premise that the government cannot be sued at all.

All of this is great news if you believe that the government should be held accountable for breaking the law.  To be sure, though, enacting Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121 should not actually have been necessary.  At least since the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision in Colonial Pipeline Company v. Morgan—a 2008 opinion addressing litigants’ right to sue the government for declaratory and injunctive relief regarding constitutional violations—it has been clear that “sovereign immunity simply does not apply to a declaratory judgment action challenging the constitutionality of a statute against state officers.”  That decision, however, did not stop Tennessee’s flagrantly dishonest and democracy-hating Attorney General from arguing that the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision should be ignored and that such claims should be disallowed anyway.[1]  Thus, the General Assembly felt compelled to make clear, beyond any serious dispute, through Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121 that: “Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, a cause of action shall exist under this chapter for any affected person who seeks declaratory or injunctive relief in any action brought regarding the legality or constitutionality of a governmental action.”  Remarkably, the Attorney General’s Office continues to argue that such lawsuits still should not be allowed regardless of what Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121 unambiguously says on the matter.  Unsurprisingly, those arguments have not proven successful.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121 also falls short in a critical respect.  In particular, it makes clear that “[a] cause of action shall not exist under this chapter to seek damages.”  Consequently, because damages generally are not allowed in Tennessee for state constitutional or statutory violations under any other provision, either, many individuals who are deprived of their rights or injured by illegal governmental conduct are left without a complete remedy.  Thus, to ensure that the government can be held fully accountable and deprived of any incentive to act illegally, there remains work left to be done to vindicate the Tennessee Constitution’s still-illusory guarantee that: “All courts shall be open, and every person for an injury done him, in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law.”

Nonetheless, it is clear at this point that Tenn. Code Ann. § 1-3-121 has ushered in a new era of governmental accountability across Tennessee.  Thus, to everyone except government officials who behave illegally: Happy 1-3-121 Day to you and yours.

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[1] When pressed during oral argument on the issue in the past, the Office of the Attorney General has been somewhat more candid about its actual position on the matter:  It believes that “Colonial Pipeline was wrongfully decided,” and that it “is an overbroad decision.”  See Transcript of Aug. 17, 2018 Hearing in Zarate v. The Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners, Davidson County Chancery Court Case No. 18-534-II, p. 11, lines 9–13.

MTSU was denied a law school.  Was the Higher Education Commission’s decision legal?

Constitutional Law, Tennessee Constitutional Law, ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

Earlier this month, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission voted 8-5 to deny Middle Tennessee State University’s proposal to add a law school to its higher education offerings.  Given that Tennessee’s only existing public law schools are located in Memphis and Knoxville, MTSU’s proposal would have added the first and only public law school option to the Middle Tennessee area.  Its addition would also have introduced substantial competition into the low-cost segment of Middle Tennessee’s strictly private law school market, which is currently failing to produce.

Blasting criticism of the proposal, MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee called on the Commission to reject the “cartel-like view” that its role was to inhibit competition.  Opponents of the plan also appeared to make his point for him.  For instance, in urging the Commission to vote down a law school at MTSU, WPLN reports that “[t]he biggest critics of the transfer came from lawyers and law schools in Memphis and Knoxville, where the state’s only other public law schools are located.”  Other critics decried the fact that another school in the city: (1) “would take away from other schools’ ability to compete,” (2) “would saturate an already dense legal labor market,” (3) “would make it even more difficult for law school graduates to find work,” and (4) would “insert more law school graduates into an already crowded job market.”

The extent to which “the biggest” critics’ interests in stifling competition factored into the Higher Education Commission’s decision to vote down MTSU’s proposal is not clear.  What is clear, however, is that if concerns about enhanced competition in the legal industry or the private law school market—something that uniformly benefits consumers by affording them more choices and lower prices—played any role at all, the Higher Education Commission’s decision was not lawful.  Specifically, although Tennessee regulators appear to be unaware of this fact, a vast body of law instructs that raw economic protectionism is an illegitimate governmental interest, and that under both federal and state law, governmental action aimed solely at inhibiting competition is illegal.

In 2002, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held for the first time that “protecting a discrete interest group from economic competition is not a legitimate governmental purpose” and violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[1]  As far as state law is concerned, the Tennessee Supreme Court has long held that protectionism is forbidden by the Tennessee Constitution as well.  In the 1956 case Consumers Gasoline Stations v. City of Pulaski, for instance, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that “[a]lthough [a] city may have the right to regulate [a] business, it does not have the right to exclude certain persons from engaging in the business while allowing others to do so.”[2]  A wealth of additional state precedent spanning more than a century also supports this premise.[3]

Nor is the legal prohibition against raw protectionism a dead letter.  Over the past two years, a series of high-profile victories—from the case of bar applicant Maximiliano Gluzman to the case of on-demand beauty and health service provider Project Belle—were specifically defended on that basis, and recent Tennessee statutory law similarly provides that “arbitrarily limiting entry and reducing competition” is not a legitimate public purpose.  In sum:  At least in Tennessee, the prohibition against economic protectionism is real, it is meaningful, and it is enforceable.

With this context in mind, if attempts to stifle competition in the private Middle Tennessee law school market or in the legal industry more broadly played any role in the Commission’s 8-5 decision to reject MTSU’s proposal to add a law school, then MTSU is entitled to a new hearing.  Just as unconstitutional hostility to a litigant’s religious beliefs cannot play a role in an administrative proceeding, nor can unconstitutional hostility to competition factor into the Higher Education Commission’s decisions.  Given the prominent and visible role that raw economic protectionism of private industry appears to have played in the Commission’s decision to vote down a law school at MTSU, however, the school should seriously consider its right to appeal.

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[1] Craigmiles v. Giles, 312 F.3d 220, 224 (6th Cir. 2002).

[2] Consumers Gasoline Stations v. City of Pulaski, 292 S.W.2d 735, 737 (Tenn. 1956).

[3] See, e.g., Harbison v. Knoxville Iron Co., 53 S.W. 955, 957 (Tenn. 1899) (“The ‘liberty’ contemplated in [the Tennessee Constitution] means not only the right of freedom from servitude, imprisonment, or physical restraint, but also the right to use one’s faculties in all lawful ways, to live and work where he chooses, to pursue any lawful calling, vocation, trade, or profession, to make all proper contracts in relation thereto, and to enjoy the legitimate fruits thereof.”); Yardley v. Hosp. Housekeeping Sys., LLC, 470 S.W.3d 800, 806 (Tenn. 2015) (noting Tennessee’s established public policy favoring citizens’ “access to employment and the ability to earn a livelihood.”).

Tennessee Supreme Court Releases Trio of Decisions Restricting Criminal Defendants’ Rights

Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, , ,

By Daniel A. Horwitz

Late last week, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a trio of critically important decisions on criminal-constitutional issues.  Continuing a recent trend on the topic, criminal defendants got walloped.

1. Further Restricting Coram Nobis Relief

In Nunley v. State of Tennessee, the Court significantly restricted the measure of relief available under the writ of error coram nobis.  Coram nobis is a procedural vehicle used to help remedy wrongful convictions based on new evidence that is discovered after a defendant has been convicted.  Regrettably, the Court’s unanimous decision in Nunley narrowed the writ’s already limited scope even further.

Nunley involved a defendant who was convicted of aggravated rape in 1998 and alleged that DNA testing proved that he was innocent of the crime.  Mr. Nunley further alleged that in 2014, he discovered that the State had withheld critical exculpatory evidence when the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office included four previously-undisclosed exhibits in a responsive pleading that it filed in opposition to his petition for DNA testing under the Post-Conviction DNA Analysis Act.

Upon review, the Court rejected Mr. Nunley’s plea for relief.  Three critical, novel holdings are worthy of emphasis:

First, the Court held that the writ of error coram nobis cannot be used to advance claims under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).  A “Brady” claim is a claim that a defendant’s right to a fair trial was violated because the State withheld exculpatory evidence that it is constitutionally required to provide to defendants.  This oft-overlooked violation can be characterized as pervasive in Shelby County and other areas in Tennessee.  Further, when Brady violations are acknowledged—even in capital cases—the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Tennessee Supreme Court has given District Attorneys little more than a slap on the wrist.  Henceforth, however, Brady claims will no longer be cognizable via the writ of error coram nobis.  Instead, they must be brought via the Tennessee Post-Conviction Procedure Act.

Second, the Court held that “timeliness under the statute of limitations is an ‘essential element’ of a coram nobis claim that must appear on the face of the petition.”  Unless tolled, a writ of error coram nobis must be filed within one year of the date of a defendant’s conviction or it will be forever unavailable as time-barred.  Given, among other things, the overwhelming difficulties associated with reinvestigating one’s case from prison and Tennessee’s structurally deficient indigent defense system, this time limitation is so short that it renders the writ practically useless.  According to the National Registry of Exonerations, criminal defendants who were exonerated in 2017 “spent an average of 10.6 years incarcerated for their convictions.”  Similarly, in 2016, “[a]lmost two-thirds of the DNA exonerations in 2016 were murder cases, and the average time from conviction to exoneration was 21 years.”  Accordingly, absent rare and extraordinary circumstances, the one-year statute of limitations will operate to foreclose virtually all meaningful opportunities for relief under Tennessee’s coram nobis statute.

Third, and most significantly, the Court held that “coram nobis petitions with inadequate allegations are susceptible to summary dismissal on the face of the petition, without discovery or an evidentiary hearing.”  Importantly, the vast majority of coram nobis petitions are filed by pro se inmates who have no right or ability to have an attorney assist them.  As a result, this easily-overlooked bombshell will essentially end coram nobis relief across Tennessee, because vanishingly few pro se litigants will be able to draft a petition that successfully navigates the procedural morass necessary to state a cognizable claim for relief on their own.  Thus, when coram nobis petitions are filed, nearly all of them will now be dismissed summarily: (1) without a response; (2) without a hearing; and (3) without the opportunity to have an attorney file an amended petition to correct any shortcomings in the inmate’s pleadings.  As a consequence, for nearly all practical purposes, the writ of error coram nobis is now dead.

2.  Growing Expansion of “Good Faith” Exception to Unlawful Searches

In State v. Lowe, the Tennessee Supreme Court addressed a suppression issue in a gruesome case involving two murdered newborns.  The contested search warrant involved a magistrate’s “simple and good-faith clerical error of incorrectly indicating on one of three copies of the warrant that it was issued at 11:35 ‘PM’ while correctly indicating on the other two copies that it was issued at 11:35 ‘AM.’”  Although there is an extremely good reason why law enforcement is required to state the time of issuance on a search warrant—it helps “ensure that the warrant is obtained [legally] before the search is conducted, not [illegally] afterwards”—the error in Lowe genuinely appeared to have been a clerical one committed in good faith.

Following a similar set of circumstances, in 2011, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted the “Exclusionary Rule Reform Act,” which provides that evidence “shall not be suppressed” if the court determines that the violation was the result of a good faith mistake or “technical” violation.  In a holding that would traditionally be important, the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously determined that, in enacting the ERRA, the General Assembly encroached upon the exclusive province of the judiciary in violation of the Tennessee Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.  Accordingly, the Court held that “the ERRA represents an impermissible encroachment by the legislature upon this Court’s authority,” and it invalidated the ERRA as unconstitutional.

Even so, the Court nonetheless did precisely what the ERRA instructed, and it adopted its central legislative demand as a matter of Tennessee common law.  Notably, this is the second time in three years that the Tennessee Supreme Court has “asserted” its authority under the separation of powers doctrine, only to “acquiesc[e] to the standard proposed by the General Assembly” and adopt as a matter of Tennessee common law precisely what the legislature had promulgated as a matter of statute.

In sum: finding that “the magistrate’s good-faith mistake was inconsequential,” the Court held that “the exclusionary rule should not be applied under these circumstances,” and it declined to suppress the evidence gathered as a result.

3.  Wholesale Embrace of the “Good Faith” Exception

Third and finally, in a case relying on its just-released decision in Lowe, the Tennessee Supreme Court took up State v. Daniel, a decision involving whether the “good faith” exception should apply when law enforcement fails to provide a defendant with a copy of a search warrant at all.

One scholar has written about the Tennessee Supreme Court’s breakneck sprint toward a wholesale “good faith” exception in Tennessee.  Somewhat less noticed has been the fact that Tennessee Supreme Court has also changed the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure to accommodate it, bolstering its permanence.  Effective July 1, 2018, Rule 41 was amended to afford trial courts discretion to determine whether to exclude evidence that was gathered pursuant to a search warrant that is noncompliant with Rule 41.  See 2018 Tenn. Ct. Order 0002, No. ADM2017-01892 (Tenn. 2018).  The amendment altered the critical language of subsection (g)—which had stated that a motion to suppress “shall be granted” if a search warrant is defective—to read instead that the motion “may” be granted.  This rule change, however, is merely a matter of formality, having already been adopted informally by judicial fiat.  In 2015, in a cursory section on page 32 of its decision in State v. Corrin Reynolds, the Tennessee Supreme Court expressly held that the notion that the word “shall” in Rule 41 ever actually meant what it said “would be peculiar indeed.”

With this context in mind, the Court easily concluded that the “good faith” exception to unlawful searches applied in Daniel, finding that although the search warrant at issue was not provided to the defendant, the mistake was an honest one and did not result in any prejudice.  As a consequence, while continuing to characterize the good faith exception as a “narrow” one despite decision after decision indicating otherwise, the Court determined that the evidence would not be suppressed.

***

Taken together, the Tennessee Supreme Court continues its steady campaign to restrict the rights of the criminally accused.  As a result, criminal defendants in Tennessee—particularly those who are innocent—may be forced to turn to federal courts for habeas corpus relief under equitable exceptions that excuse defendants’ failure to comply with inadequate state processes instead.

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Eighth Amendment Challenge Filed Against Tennessee’s “Drug Free School Zone” Law

Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, ,

Nashville, Tennessee—A groundbreaking constitutional challenge has been filed regarding Tennessee’s “Drug Free School Zone Act,” a flawed but well-intentioned law that has recently come under fire by several conservative groups because it “ensnare[s] many individuals who fall outside of the scope and purpose of the law” and has resulted in significant collateral consequences that have been “passed on to taxpayers without any public safety returns.”  The law has long been a target of criminal justice reformers, who have argued that the severe, mandatory minimum penalties contemplated by Tennessee’s School Zone law fail to make appropriate distinctions between people who sell drugs to children and people who don’t.  A recent poll of 531 registered voters in Tennessee indicated that 84% of Tennesseans support reforming the law, including 90% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans.  Among other things, the law operates to punish first-time, non-violent drug offenders more severely than defendants who are convicted of violent crimes like Rape and Second Degree Murder.

Calvin Bryant is a beloved former Hillsboro High School football star, a former Tennessee State University student, and a former Tennessean employee.  A decade ago, witnesses described him as a “model citizen” who had “impeccable” character, was “loving toward his family,” “took a great interest in the people who live[d] in his neighborhood,” and was “very generous” with the elderly.  In 2008, however, Mr. Bryant was indicted for selling ecstasy pills to an aggressive government informant who had contacted him repeatedly, reminded Mr. Bryant that “he had helped raise him,” insisted that he needed drugs to earn money to feed his family, and pleaded with Mr. Bryant to help him get some.

The government’s informant had thirty-nine (39) separate convictions on his record in Davidson County alone at the time of the drug sales at issue—many of them violent felonies.  Even so, the informant was paid more than $1,000 in taxpayer money and avoided jailtime in exchange for helping secure Mr. Bryant’s conviction.  Mr. Bryant’s first trial ended in a hung jury after several jurors concluded that Mr. Bryant had been entrapped.  After his second trial, however, Mr. Bryant was convicted of selling drugs.

Even though it was a first-time, non-violent offense—Mr. Bryant had no other criminal history of any kind—because Mr. Bryant’s residence was located within 1,000 feet of a school, Mr. Bryant received a mandatory minimum sentence of seventeen (17) years in prison.  As a result, Mr. Bryant received a considerably longer sentence for committing a first-time, non-violent drug offense than he would have received if he had committed a severe, violent crime such as Rape, Second Degree Murder, Aggravated Robbery, Aggravated Vehicular Homicide, or Attempted First Degree Murder.  Mr. Bryant has been incarcerated for the past decade.  He has at least six years in prison left to serve.

Given the extraordinary circumstances of his prosecution, Mr. Bryant has filed a novel constitutional challenge to the application of Tennessee’s intensely punitive Drug Free School Zone law to his case.  Notably, even the District Attorney who prosecuted Mr. Bryant has submitted an affidavit supporting his early release, stating that: “I fail to see how an additional six years of incarceration will improve Mr. Bryant’s amenability to correction or would be required to maintain public safety.  I additionally fail to see how his release at a time earlier than 2023—and after over nine years of incarceration—will deprecate the seriousness of the offenses for which he was convicted or significantly imperil public safety.”

Tennessee’s intensely punitive Drug Free School Zone law was designed to keep drugs away from children.  Nobody disputes that this is a laudable goal.  However, many people, including several elected officials and judges in Tennessee, have disputed whether the law was ever intended to apply to drug sales between adults inside an adult’s residence and outside of school hours—especially when a government informant has set up a drug transaction inside a school zone on purpose.  As one Tennessee judge has explained, for example:

I simply do not believe that the Tennessee legislature intended the scope of the Act to include drugs brought into the protected school zone by law enforcement’s own design. This concept of luring, which commonly takes the form of an undercover sting operation, is inconsistent with the legislative intent of the Act and defeats the overall purpose of “creat[ing] a drug-free school zone to reduce the occurrence of illegal drug activity in and around school facilities in order to enhance the learning environment.”

Mr. Bryant’s petition paints a heartbreaking picture of a law that was never intended for cases like his but which applied to him anyway.  In Davidson County, he notes, so-called “drug free” zones “cover[] almost every habitable portion of Nashville and [nearly] all of its urban core.”  As a result, based solely on a prosecutor’s discretion, the law can be applied “to virtually every drug sale that takes place in Nashville.”  Even so, in the approximately two decades since the law was enacted, only 62 defendants have ever been punished with the school zone sentencing enhancement in Davidson County, which upgrades a defendant’s conviction by a full felony class and renders defendants ineligible for parole for decades.  Although, as a general matter, the law has been used sparingly to punish dangerous or repeat offenders, Mr. Bryant’s petition notes that he has “the dubious distinction of being the only defendant in the history of this jurisdiction to receive Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-432’s sentencing enhancement for a first-time offense.”

Mr. Bryant’s petition also highlights the fact that “Davidson County’s own Grand Jury has observed that the [District Attorney’s] previous application of the school zone enhancement was arbitrary and capricious,” having formerly been applied in a way that turned substantially on a defendant’s poverty.  It explains:

“[G]iven the location-based nature of the sentencing enhancement at issue, Mr. Bryant’s sentence was also enhanced dramatically based on his poverty alone.  If, for example, Mr. Bryant had lived in a wealthy, residentially-zoned suburb like Belle Meade, then he likely would have been eligible for release after serving just two years and five months in prison for the exact same conduct.  Because Mr. Bryant lived in the Edgehill Housing Projects, however, Mr. Bryant must serve a mandatory minimum sentence of at least fifteen (15) years before he even becomes eligible for parole.”

Further, Mr. Bryant’s petition notes that before the new District Attorney reformed his office’s use of the school zone sentencing enhancement in 2014, “Davidson County’s application of Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-432 was unmistakably race-based.”  “Although there is abundant evidence that people of all races in Nashville use and sell drugs at roughly equal rates,” his petition explains, fully “87% of defendants in this jurisdiction who received enhanced sentences under Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-432 were people of color.”

Most importantly, however, Mr. Bryant notes that in the time since his conviction, Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-432 has been reformed both judicially and operationally to avoid precisely the type of strict liability penalty that applied in his case.  Consequently, if Mr. Bryant had committed the exact same offense today, then he would likely have been subject to a maximum sentence of between two and eight years in prison, rather than seventeen years.  Further, given his status as a first-time, non-violent offender, Mr. Bryant may well have avoided prison time at all.

Mr. Bryant has asked Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Steve Dozier to declare his sentence unconstitutional as applied to the unique circumstances of Mr. Bryant’s case, arguing that these circumstances render his sentence excessive under both the Eighth Amendment and Article 1, Section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution.  Mr. Bryant has also petitioned Judge Dozier for release while he submits an application for a pardon or commutation.  More than a dozen supporters—including Mr. Bryant’s own prosecutor, local politicians, business owners, friends, family members, and civil rights activists—have also filed affidavits in support of Mr. Bryant’s early release.  A hearing on Mr. Bryant’s petition is set for December 15, 2017 in Davidson County Criminal Court, Division 1.

“The fact that Tennessee law punishes first-time, non-violent drug sales more harshly than rape and murder is insane,” said attorney Daniel Horwitz, who is representing Mr. Bryant.  “Mr. Bryant was a promising young college student and a pillar of his community at the time of his conviction, and he made a single mistake that has already cost him a full decade of his life behind bars.  Mr. Bryant has more than paid his debt to society, and he deserves to be released.  This is the most unfair sentence I have ever seen.”

Read Mr. Bryant’s Verified Petition for Sentencing Relief here.

Selected Media Coverage

-Patch:  Nashville Case Highlights Drug-Free School Zone Reform Efforts

-Reason: How a Drug-Free School Zone Sent a Tennessee College Student to Prison For 17 Years

-Nashville Scene:  Council Members Petition Judge Over Drug-Free School Zone Case

-The Tennessean:  He got 17 years for selling drugs near school. Now 12 Nashville officials are fighting on his behalf

Selected Case Filings

–Calvin Bryant Petition for Sentencing Relief

–Appendix

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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

###

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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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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Tennessee Supreme Court Holds that Divorce Contracts Must be Enforced as Written

Contract Law, Family Law, Tennessee Constitutional Law, ,

By Daniel Horwitz:

In a common-sense opinion that clarified a muddled conflict among lower courts, the Tennessee Supreme Court has held that fee-shifting provisions in divorce agreements must be enforced as written.  Offering a forceful defense of the right to contract, Chief Justice Bivins’ unanimous opinion in Eberach v. Eberach instructs all lower courts that they do not have any discretion to deny attorney’s fees to a prevailing party if a contract agreed to by both parties makes such an award mandatory.

Eberach involved litigation between a former husband and wife following their divorce.  In 2011, the couple divorced and entered into a “marital dissolution agreement,” or “MDA.”  In lay terms, an MDA is a binding contract that sets out the terms of a divorce.  Among other things, the parties’ MDA provided that:

“In the event it becomes reasonably necessary for either party to institute legal proceedings to procure the enforcement of any provision of this Agreement, the prevailing party shall also be entitled to a judgment for reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, incurred in prosecuting the action.”

Three years later, the ex-couple found themselves embroiled in litigation over the wife’s plan to relocate to Ohio with their three children.  Ultimately, the trial court granted the wife permission to move to Ohio and awarded her $20,000.00 in attorney’s fees.  Thereafter, the trial court’s decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, which upheld both the relocation and the trial court’s fee award.  However, the Court of Appeals declined to award the wife additional compensation for the attorney’s fees that she had incurred on appeal.

Upon review, the Tennessee Supreme Court observed that various tribunals of the Court of Appeals had “been inconsistent in their analysis of claims for attorney’s fees in cases in which the claim is based on a contractual provision in a MDA.”  One line of cases held that appellate courts have discretion to deny attorney’s fees to a prevailing party “even in the face of a controlling contractual fee provision requiring such an award.”[1]  Another line of authority held that “when a MDA fee provision mandates an award of attorney’s fees to the prevailing party, the Court of Appeals does not have discretion to deny an award of appellate attorney’s fees.”[2]  Additionally, a third line of cases “observed that an award of appellate attorney fees in Tennessee is within the court’s sound discretion,” but then went on “to award attorney’s fees on appeal solely on the basis of the parties’ MDA fee provisions without further discussion.”[3]

Clarifying this conflicting precedent, the Tennessee Supreme Court instructed with unmistakable clarity that “parties are contractually entitled to recover their reasonable attorney’s fees when they have an agreement that provides the prevailing party in a [lawsuit] is entitled to such fees.”   “In such cases,” the Court explained, trial courts “do[] not have the discretion to set aside the parties’ agreement and supplant it with its own judgment.”  The Court further instructed that “[t]he same is and must be true of our appellate courts.”  Thus, “[a]bsent fraud, mistake, or some other defect, our courts are required to interpret contracts as written.”

As a general matter, litigants in the United States must pay their own attorney’s fees regardless of whether they win or lose.  Under this so-called “American Rule”—to which Tennessee adheres—“a party in a civil action may recover attorney’s fees only if: (1) a contractual or statutory provision creates a right to recover attorney’s fees; or (2) some other recognized exception to the American Rule applies, allowing for recovery of such fees in a particular case.”[4]  “Otherwise,” as the Eberach court observed, “litigants are responsible for their own attorney’s fees.”  Of note, the general presumption that parties must bear their own legal fees places the United States at odds with the legal regimes of many European nations, which generally adhere to a “loser pays” framework.

The most common exception to the American rule is a private agreement between parties which provides that in the event of litigation, the loser must pay the winner’s attorney’s fees.  Significantly, in Eberach, the husband and wife had executed such an agreement.  Thus, the only question presented in Eberach was whether the Court of Appeals was required to enforce it.

Emphatically answering this question in the affirmative, the Court’s opinion in Eberach furthers Tennessee’s longstanding commitment to protecting the right to contract.  In Tennessee, the right to contract has constitutional origins, and it is enforceable as a fundamental right.[5]  Tennessee statutory law also provides that: “All contracts, . . . in writing and signed by the party to be bound, . . .  shall be enforced as written.”[6]  In keeping with this tradition, the Eberach court explained that “one of the bedrocks of Tennessee law is that our courts are without power to make another and different contract from the one executed by the parties themselves.”  As such, the Court mandated that the terms of the husband’s and wife’s MDA be enforced.

Having resolved that the wife was entitled to attorney’s fees for her successful litigation in the Court of Appeals, the Court then remanded the case to the trial court to “determine the appropriate amount of Wife’s reasonable attorney’s fees on the appeal.”  Additionally, applying its just-announced holding to itself, the Tennessee Supreme Court also explained that the attorney’s fee award must cover the costs of the wife’s appeal “to this Court” as well.  Thus, going forward, litigants in Tennessee—and divorcees in particular—can have renewed faith that the terms of their contracts will, in fact, be enforced as written.

Read the Court’s unanimous opinion in Eberach v. Eberach here.

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[1] See Grisham v. Grisham, No. W2010- 00618-COA-R3-CV, 2011 WL 607377, at *11 (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 22, 2011) (holding that the trial court erred in failing to award wife her reasonable trial court attorney’s fees pursuant to MDA fee provision, but declining to award appellate attorney’s fees pursuant to the Court of Appeals’ discretion); Brown v. Brown, No. W2005-00811-COA-R3-CV, 2006 WL 784788, at *6 (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 29, 2006) (affirming the trial court’s award of trial court fees under the parties’ MDA, but equitably denying wife’s request for appellate fees pursuant to the Court of Appeals’ discretion); Elliott v. Elliott, 149 S.W.3d 77, 88 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2004) (affirming the trial court’s award of fees to wife pursuant to parties’ MDA fee provision, but denying wife’s request for appellate attorney’s fees); Dulin v. Dulin, No. W2001-02969-COA-R3-CV, 2003 WL 22071454, at *8, *10 (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 3, 2003) (affirming trial court’s award of attorney’s fees pursuant to MDA, but equitably declining to award either party attorney’s fees incurred on appeal).

[2] See, e.g., Beem v. Beem, No. W2009-00800-COA-R3-CV, 2010 WL 1687782, at *9-10 (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 28, 2010) (affirming trial court’s award of fees pursuant to MDA and holding that wife was entitled to attorney’s fees on appeal pursuant to the parties’ MDA); Treadway v. Treadway, No. M2014-00898-COA-R3-CV, 2015 WL 1396652, at *7 (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 24, 2015) (awarding appellate attorney’s fees pursuant to the parties’ MDA); Brinton v. Brinton, No. M2009-02215-COA-R3-CV, 2010 WL 2025473, at *6 (Tenn. Ct. App. May 19, 2010) (same); Corbin v. Corbin, No. W2008-00437-COAR3-CV, 2009 WL 454134, at *7 (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 24, 2009) (same); Waugh v. Waugh, No. M2006-021540COA-R3-CV, 2007 WL 2200278, at *4 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 30, 2007) (same); Hogan, 1999 WL 1097983, at *4-5 (reversing trial court’s denial of attorney’s fees, and awarding attorney’s fees to Mother for trial court and appellate level proceedings pursuant to the parties’ MDA).

[3] Wilkinson v. Wilkinson, No. W2012-00509-COA-R3-CV, 2013 WL 614708, at *10 (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 19, 2013); (citing Archer, 907 S.W.2d at 419) (emphasis supplied)). See also Hanna v. Hanna, No. W2014-02051- COA-R3-CV, 2015 WL 1951932, at *4 (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 30, 2015) (stating its discretion then awarding fees on appeal based on the parties’ MDA requiring that the “court shall award reasonable attorney’s fees to the party seeking to enforce [the MDA]”) (alterations in original); Williams v. Williams, No. M2013-01910-COA-R3-CV, 2015 WL 412985, at *14 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 30, 2015) (affirming the trial court’s award of fees pursuant to the parties’ MDA, stating its discretion and determining that wife was entitled to attorney’s fees on appeal pursuant to the parties’ MDA); Dodd v. Dodd, No. M2011-02147-COA-R3-CV, 2012 WL 3193339, at *6 (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 6, 2012) (holding that Mother was entitled to recover her trial court attorney’s fees pursuant to the parties’ MDA, but using its discretion and concluding that Mother was justified in recovering attorney’s fees).

[4] Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. v. Epperson, 284 S.W.3d 303, 308 (Tenn. 2009) (citing Fezell, 158 S.W.3d at 359; John Kohl & Co. P.C. v. Dearborn & Ewing, 977 S.W.2d 528, 534 (Tenn. 1998)).

[5] See Tenn. Const. art. XI, § 2; Tenn. Const. art. I, § 20.  See also ARC LifeMed, Inc. v. AMC-Tennessee, Inc., 183 S.W.3d 1, 26 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2005) (“equity respects and upholds the fundamental right of the individual to complete freedom to contract”) (quotation omitted).

[6] Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-50-112(a).

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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