Tennessee Senate should follow House and pass drug-free school zone reform | Opinion
Making 2020 bill retroactive would give hundreds the chance to have their sentences reviewed and maybe reduced in line with current law.
Recently, the Tennessee House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would make 2020’s drug-free school zone sentencing reform bill retroactive — meaning hundreds of people like our daughter, Sara, would get the opportunity for a sentence reduction.
We’re urging the Senate to follow suit and give people like Sara a chance to have their sentences reviewed and possibly reduced, so their pre-2020 sentences are put in line with the law as it is now.
Though Gov. Bill Lee has stated that he would consider clemency for people in Sara’s position, the bill the House passed would give people the chance to go back to court and ask for a fairer sentence. The bill doesn’t guarantee a reduction in sentence but simply makes it possible, if a judge agrees that it is warranted.
It would build on the great progress made in 2020 in reforming drug-free school zone laws, which seem great on paper. No one, us included, wants to see children exposed to drugs, and creating harsher penalties for those who do this appears to be an appropriate solution.
But in practice, drug-free school zones can make criminal penalties harsher based just on where you live. Sara’s story illustrates this problem perfectly.
Ironically, when Sara was a teenager, she was very interested in law enforcement. She attended a Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program at her high school, and outside of school, she enrolled in a program called Police Explorers. This program taught teens skills, tactics and strategies on how to become a police officer.
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At school Sara got into trouble and was sent to an alternative school. She dropped out of the Training Corps and Police Explorers, and she started fighting with us. Life became a cycle of her using drugs and crashing, an attempt at sobriety and recovery, then falling back into drug addiction.
When Sara was arrested, she was 26, broke and deep into drug addiction. She sold a little more than 2 grams of methamphetamine on four occasions to a confidential informant. But unfortunately for Sara, the sales took place in her home — next to an elementary school.
Though she never left her home and everyone involved was an adult, her eight-year sentence was more than twice as long as it would have been had she not lived in a school zone.
Last year’s bill cut drug-free school zones down from 1,000 feet to 500 feet around schools, churches, parks and libraries, and judges are no longer required to issue a mandatory minimum sentence if children were not present or in danger.
Unfortunately for Sara, the law was not made retroactive — meaning people like her (and about 400 other people in Tennessee’s prisons) saw no change to their sentences, even though they would receive a shorter sentence if their crime happened today.
The House recognized that getting a fair sentence shouldn’t depend on the day you went to court. We hope the Senate recognizes those left behind in 2020, too. Sara deserves a second chance, and she’s not alone.
Buel and Teresa Moore live in Lenoir City.