The Tennessee State Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday will consider a resolution that would begin the process of amending the Tennessee Constitution to allow judges the discretion to refuse bail to defendants facing a greater variety of charges, potentially resulting in thousands of additional criminals kept off the street while awaiting trial. The resolution was previously approved last year, and will require a two-thirds approval from lawmakers before voters make the final decision next year.
Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 25 would modify Article 1, Section 15 of the Constitution of Tennessee to allow judges to refuse bail to defendants accused of capital offenses, acts of terrorism, second degree murder, aggravated rape of a child, aggravated, rape, and grave torture, as well as those who face charges for which the defendant, “could not be released prior to the expiration of at least eighty-five percent of the entire sentence imposed.”
The resolution was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) and appeared to received the support of House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville), who urged the General Assembly to change Tennessee’s bail system in a Friday post to the social media platform X.
Sexton wrote, “This is why we must fix Tennessee’s bail system. A man charged with murdering a 3 [year]-old girl was released on bond, gets out and gets involved in another murder, bonds out AGAIN – and now he’s on the run.”
The Republican leader added, “Our constitutional amendment will give judges the authority and discretion to keep violent offenders behind bars by denying bail.”
— Speaker Cameron Sexton (@CSexton25) February 21, 2025
He referenced the allegations levied against 25-year-old Dyquan Collins, who WKRN reported was released on bail after he was charged with the 2021 killing of a 16-year-old girl, but last year appeared on the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) list of most wanted criminals.
Despite the early support from top Republican leadership in the General Assembly, at least one member of the party has publicly opposed the resolution, as State Senate Judiciary Chairman Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) argued the proposed constitutional change would result in rural county jails being overwhelmed with inmates.
“My concern is what judge running for re-election is not going to put somebody away for 100% of the time?” Gardenhire said, according to The Tennessee Lookout. “There’s some real expenses the state could probably have to pick up, and I don’t think anybody has the guts to do it.”
While critics have expressed concern about jails being burdened with new inmates, the fiscal note for the resolution only predicts a $9,400 expense for the Tennessee Secretary of State to include language related to the proposal in sample ballots, as the resolution would need to go before voters after being approved by lawmakers this year.
The resolution also would only allow judges to hold defendants accused of specific crimes or under specific conditions, and research published by the Department of Justice (DOJ) indicates judges use this ability to hold a defendant without bail about 25 percent of the time.
According to the 2022 crime report published by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and data released by the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC), the increase generated by SJR 25 seems unlikely to exceed the state’s total county jail capacity.
Throughout Tennessee, that report showed 2,154 arrests for rape, 609 arrests for kidnapping or abduction, 2,585 arrests for robbery, about 1,450 people who are in the subset included under SJR 25 and were charged with aggravated assault, and 1,900 who were charged with drug trafficking crimes.
TBI does not track data related to terrorism or grave torture. The federal government has stated there were just 231 domestic terrorism incidents from 2010 through 2021, and while Tennessee law explicitly defines grave torture, there does not appear to have been enough arrests to be tracked by TBI.
There were an additional 758 accused of murder in Tennessee, though the Tennessee Constitution already allows defendants accused of capital murder to be denied bail, and national trends reported by the DOJ indicate only about half of murder cases are prosecuted as capital offenses, generating an approximate increase of 379.
Including In total, this would indicate 9,077 defendants would have been newly eligible to have their bail rejected each year following the constitutional changes proposed under SJR 25, but the DOJ suggests judges may use this discretion in as few as 2,270 of the arrests.
However, the DOJ also notes that denial from judges can reach 40 percent for serious offenders, potentially expanding the number of those refused bail to about 3,600 defendants.
Though it is unlikely the dispersal of defendants denied bail under the proposed changes would be even across Tennessee’s 95 counties, the December 2024 Tennessee Jail Summary report published by TDOC suggests that county facilities across the Volunteer State have the room to house the additional inmates.
At the time of the report, Tennessee county jails held 26,506 inmates, with a maximum capacity of 31,979.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Police Arrest” by Chris Yarzab CC2.0.
