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Tennessee would now not be the one U.S. state to impose a lifetime registration as a “violent sex offender” on anybody convicted of participating in sex work whereas residing with HIV below a proposal that superior Tuesday within the legislature.
The controversial statute nonetheless on the books is being challenged in federal courtroom by LGBTQ+ and civil rights advocates. They argue that the law stems from the decades-old AIDS scare and discriminates towards HIV-positive folks. The U.S. Department of Justice has additionally weighed in on the decades-old law after finishing an investigation in December, saying that it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and known as on the state to repeal the measure.
However, Republican Sen. Page Walley on Tuesday stopped in need of totally eradicating the law and as an alternative launched laws that will take away these convicted of aggravated prostitution of getting to register as a violent sex offender.
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“It maintains the charge,” Walley mentioned. “But removes the sex offender registration.”
Prostitution has lengthy been criminalized as a misdemeanor in Tennessee. But in 1991, Tennessee lawmakers enacted an excellent harsher statute that utilized solely to sex workers residing with HIV. Nearly 20 years later, the state legislature revised the law as soon as extra by requiring lifetime sex offender registration for these convicted below the controversial statute.
In the years since, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that legal guidelines criminalizing HIV publicity — lots of which have been enacted amid the peak of the AIDS epidemic — are outdated and ineffective. Black and Latino communities have been significantly affected by these legal guidelines whilst the identical requirements don’t apply to different infectious ailments.
The Tennessee State Capitol is seen from an aerial view on July 17, 2022. In December, the Department of Justice known as for Tennessee to repeal a measure requiring lifetime registration as a violent sex offender for anybody convicted of participating in sex work whereas residing with HIV, saying it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. A proposal to revise the law is advancing within the Tennessee legislature. (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group through Getty Images)
Some states have taken steps to repeal their HIV felony legal guidelines, akin to Illinois, which repealed all of its HIV-specific felony legal guidelines in 2021. That similar yr, New Jersey and Virginia repealed all their felony HIV-specific legal guidelines.
In Republican-dominant Tennessee, lawmakers have expressed resistance to outright repealing the aggravated prostitution cost. Instead, the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday agreed to advance a proposal that will drop the lifetime sex offender registration requirement.
Walley described his invoice as “anti-trafficking,” arguing that the present framework hurts those that might be victims of sexual assault and hinders makes an attempt to get their lives again on monitor.
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According to courtroom paperwork, 83 individuals are presently registered sex offenders for aggravated prostitution convictions in Tennessee. The majority of these convictions befell in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis. The plaintiffs difficult the law in federal courtroom, all named Jane Doe, have described years of harassment and hardships find housing and employment that complies with Tennessee’s violent sex offender registry.
The laws would nonetheless have to clear the total Senate and House chambers earlier than it could make it to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk for consideration. The Republican governor has not weighed in publicly on the invoice.
Meanwhile, the federal lawsuit is ongoing. It’s presently scheduled to go to trial in 2026.
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