John Doe v. William Byron Lee, Governor of the State of Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee civil rights lawyer represented the Plaintiff seeking an injunction barring certain Tennessee Officials from enforcing any of the State's sex-offender statues.



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Tennessee has long required individuals convicted of sex offenses to register with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and comply with other reporting requirements and restrictions. The state first implemented this system in 1994, when it passed a registration and reporting statute and disseminated certain information about convicted sex offenders to the public. Tennessee wasn't alone in enacting such a regulatory scheme. That same year, Congress passed a law requiring states to adopt sex-offender registration laws if they wanted to receive federal law-enforcement funding. See Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-322, § 170101, 108 Stat. 1796, 2038–42 (1994). Within two years, every state, the District of Columbia, and the federal government had enacted some form of sex-offender registration statute. See Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 89–90 (2003). This coordinated regulatory regime was meant to give the public information about sex offenders and limit offenders' access to potential victims. In 2004, Tennessee passed a new version of its sex-offender regime and has amended it several times since.

Reversed