Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog

A myriad of new laws took effect in Tennessee on July 1, 2010, many of which deal directly with criminal law and defendants' rights. One such law will strengthen Tennessee's already burdensome restrictions that are placed on persons found guilty of sexual offenses. Under the old Tennessee Code, an exception to the restrictions placed on registered sex offenders was carved out allowing registered sex offenders to visit the grounds of a school, day care, child care establishment, park, playground or recreation center as a parent or legal guardian of a child who was enrolled and participating in the conference or other scheduled event hosted by the facility or location. This exception applied to all registered sex offenders unless a minor victim of the offense committed by that offender would also be attending that same function in which case the offender was prohibited from attending. This basically allowed offenders to take their children to school and attend events such as school plays and parent-teacher conferences for the purpose of supporting the education of their children.

Under the new law, it becomes tougher for sex offenders to attend these events. The new law requires the offender to have written permission from the school's principal or the administrator of the facility at which the event is being held. There is no wording in the statute that gives any indication that the principal or administrator has to have good cause to deny permission to an offender seeking it under this section, leaving open the possibility that sex offenders may be denied from participating in the school functions of their children based solely on their status as sex offenders. The bright side to this new law is that it also provides that an offender can only be punished with a fine if he or she violates this statute by virtue of not having obtained written permission to be at the event or location. This law is one of many newly effective laws in Tennessee that will make life tougher on Tennesseans convicted of crimes. Some other such laws will be examined in future blogs.