House Judiciary supports letting juries know sex offender history
NASHVILLE (AP) — Juries would learn if a defendant accused of sexually abusing a young child has a past conviction under legislation approved overwhelmingly Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee.
Despite concerns from a University of Tennessee law professor that it would violate constitutional separation of powers between the courts and the Legislature, the committee stacked with practicing attorneys voted 10-2 for the bill.
UT professor Donald Paine said that he thinks legislators have the right to change the law to allow the execution of child sex abusers but that he believes they’re overstepping their bounds if they mess with the courts’ rules of evidence.
Former Judiciary Committee Chairman Frank Buck, a Dowelltown Democrat and attorney, said meddling with the Supreme Court and the constitution is where lawmakers often get themselves in trouble.
However, the legislation has powerful supporters in House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, who made a rare committee appearance to vote for the bill, and Democratic Caucus Chairman Randy Rinks, who is sponsoring it.
Actor and Knoxville native David Keith spoke on behalf of the bill, telling lawmakers that “we need to do our best to ensure that the people who crave our children are off the streets.”
He said pedophiles share information via the Internet about where to find children and “what states have the softest legal underbelly to exploit.
“Right now, they’re coming to Tennessee.”
He said Tennessee is one of 10 states that don’t allow previous convictions into evidence in child sex abuse trials. Federal courts do allow evidence of prior convictions and arrests in such cases.
Brian Holmgren, a Nashville prosecutor who handles nothing but child cases, said the proposed legislation is much stricter than laws in other states, to ensure due process rights of the accused are protected. “It’s only about one-tenth of the loaf, but the children demand those crumbs in balancing the scales of justice,” he said.
Also sponsoring the bill is Republican Sen. Tim Burchett of Knoxville, who got interested after jurors contacted him about a case last November in Knoxville where they acquitted a man of charges that he assaulted a 12-year old boy.
The man, Robert Charles Druckemiller, had been convicted in Pennsylvania of a similar offense and the jurors told Burchett they would have voted to convict him had they known that.
The bill would cost the state an estimated $332,500 to house convicted child sex abusers. Most legislation that spends that kind of money goes nowhere because of the state’s tight finances.
But Rinks said he hopes to get approval of funding before the bill is heard in the House Finance Committee. “The huge fiscal note tells me there are still pedophiles on the street,” he said.
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On the Net:
Read Senate Bill 2473/House Bill 3186 at http://www.legislature.state.tn.us