Bill That Potentially Protects Murderers Of Minors Passes In Tennessee Senate

Image: Senate Bill Sponsor Senator Shane Reeves (R-District 14-Murfreesboro) Image Credit: capitol.tn.gov

The Tennessee Conservative [By Rebecca Scott] –

A bill that could potentially shield violent perpetrators who have murdered a child from receiving just consequence has passed in the Tennessee Senate with a vote of 28 to 3.

Senate Bill 2020 (SB2020), sponsored by Senator Shane Reeves (R-District 14-Murfreesboro), in summary “specifies that reports of county medical examiners and autopsy reports of victims of violent crime who are minors are not public documents; allows a parent or legal guardian of a minor victim of a violent crime to consent to the release of the report of the county medical examiner or autopsy report of the minor victim if the parent or legal guardian is not a suspect in the circumstances of the minor’s death. – Amends TCA Title 10, Chapter 7; Title 38; Title 39 and Title 40.”

In the Senate, the only No votes to the bill came from Republican Senators Janice Bowling, Joey Hensley and Mark Pody.

As previously reported by The Tennessee Conservative, Deborah Fisher, Executive Director of Tennessee Coalition For Open Government, spoke in opposition to the bill, explaining that such a bill would shield violent perpetrators who have murdered a child, from receiving a just consequence. 

Fisher explained in detail how this bill will harm future child victims of violent crime: 

“This bill seeks to close information about crime victims. But what it really does is close information about a crime. State law requires an autopsy when a person is killed by another person, or a death is suspicious. Autopsies are public record in most states. They have been public record in Tennessee from the beginning. The information in an autopsy is very important in determining not just how a person died, but who the killer was.” Fisher continued, “This bill assumes that police and prosecutors always get it right. Every couple of years, a story emerges in which a local journalist has used an autopsy — often working with a frustrated extended family member and not necessarily the parent — to shine line on both mistakes and attempted coverups.” 

Representative Rebecca Alexander (R-District 7-Jonesborough) who sponsors the companion bill, House Bill 1695 (HB1695), has been previously quoted by The Tennessee Conservative as saying, “We have the ability to protect our children while they are alive, we lose that when they’re dead. And for these moms at Covenant, which is where this bill came from, the phone calls we were getting asking to have, having their child’s autopsy report, out in the public was horrendous and it was a nightmare for them. So that’s why we decided that minors need to be protected even in death.”

Fisher also acknowledged the families for which this bill was written, stating, “I know there is a desire to ease the grief of the parents of the Covenant children. Those autopsies have already been released under state law. Nothing changes there. This bill deals with autopsies in the future. It won’t protect children, but it may have the very unintended consequence of protecting their killers.” 

Rebecca Scott is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Rebecca at Rebecca@tennesseeconservativenews.com