Tennessee State Senator Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) filed SB 2757 on Thursday, called the Restoration of Dignity for the Elderly Act, which would allow criminals who have served more than half of their sentence and are at least 60 to serve the remainder of their sentence under house arrest.
A summary for SB 2757 would require the Tennessee Department of Correction “to create a five-year pilot program for the release” of inmates who are defined as elderly, which the bill defines as over the age of 60, and have “served a minimum of 65 percent of the sentence imposed,” to be released under house arrest.
The legislation would preclude criminals who committed a violent sexual offense, as well as those who are sentenced to life without parole.
Criminals who are convicted of murder, however, are not ineligible for the house arrest program, and could be considered for the Restoration of Dignity program so long as they were not convicted of more than one murder or of facilitating more than one murder.
Akbari, who in 2019 announced her early endorsement of President Joe Biden, was previously behind a 2018 effort to automatically help restore voting rights to Tennesseans with low-level felony convictions, which she insisted would benefit “Tennesseans as a whole” and cited the initiative as a bipartisan criminal justice reform.
More recently, Akbari claimed the letter-grade evaluations by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) of all schools in the state, which weight academic achievement higher student growth, are “flawed” and “will never define a school, their students and families, or their teachers and staff.” Just under half of schools in Memphis, where Akbari lives, received passing grades.
The senator’s effort to allow for the dignified release of elderly criminals comes just months after her colleague, Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis), called for an investigation into Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan and District Attorney Steve Mulroy to determine if they orchestrated the “illegal” release of a man sentenced to 162 years in prison.
Taylor alleged in a December complaint that Skahan and Mulroy orchestrated the unlawful 2022 release of Courtney Anderson, who had been sentenced to 162 years in prison, and also that they broke the law when vacating the sentence of Michael Sample, who was convicted of two murders.
SB 2757 was also filed after Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) was joined in Memphis by legislative leaders and community members to announce plans for a new amendment to the Tennessee Constitution that would allow judges more latitude when assigning bail.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “State Sen. Raumesh Akbari” by State Sen Raumesh Akbari and “Prison” by Pfnatic CC3.0.
She’s crazy!
She wont even see 60 with the amount of cheese burgers she murders.
Akbari is ridiculous, she needs to be replaced.
democrats like this are pro-criminal and anti-good citizen.
Democrats are out to destroy all aspects of damn. Law and order!
Another failed attempt by another looney lefty to decriminalize crime in Tennessee