Doe v. Lee
| Decision Date | 21 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. 3:20-cv-00610,3:20-cv-00610 |
| Parties | JOHN DOE, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM B. LEE, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee |
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Pending before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction. (Doc. No. 16, "Motion"). Via the Motion, Plaintiff asks the Court to preliminarily enjoin Defendants from enforcing Tennessee's Sexual Offender Registry Act ("SORA") regime against Plaintiff. The Court has considered the Motion and its accompanying memorandum of law (Doc. Nos. 16, 17), Defendants' response (Doc. No. 21), and Plaintiff's reply (Doc. No. 22). For the reasons discussed below, the Court will abstain from determining the merits of the Motion, and the case generally, under the Younger abstention doctrine.
In 1994, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the SORA, which required the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to "establish, maintain, and update a centralized record system of sexual offender registration and verification information." 1994 Tenn. Pub. Laws, ch. 976 § 7(a). The SORA required registration for all individuals convicted of any one of a number of identified sexual offenses, "unless the offender had been wholly released without supervision from incarceration, probation, or parole prior to January 1, 1995." Doe v. Haslam, No. 3:16-CV-02862, 2017 WL 5187117, at *1 (M.D. Tenn. Nov. 9, 2017) (Crenshaw, C.J.) (citing 1994 Tenn. Pub. Laws, ch. 976 § 3(2)-(3)). However, "[i]n the ensuring decades, [] the Tennessee General Assembly repeatedly returned to the sexual offender registration statutes to change whom they reached, what they required, and how much protection they offered to registered offenders' privacy." Reid v. Lee, No. 3:20-CV-00050, 2020 WL 4501457, at *3 (M.D. Tenn. Aug. 5, 2020).1 In 2014, Tennessee amended the SORA to require permanent, lifetime SORA registration and compliance from any person who had ever been convicted of any sex offense against a child who was 12 or younger. 2014 Tenn. Pub. Acts, ch. 770, §§ 1, 2.
If the registrant fails to comply with the requirements of the SORA, he has committed a Class E felony. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-39-208(b). The registrant's first offense is "punishable by a fine of not less than three hundred fifty dollars ($350) and imprisonment for not less than ninety (90) days." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-39-208(c). The second violation "is punishable by a fine of not less than six hundred dollars ($600) and imprisonment for not less than one hundred eighty (180) days." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-39-208(d). Any subsequent violations are "punishable by a fine of not less than one thousand one hundred dollars ($1,100) and imprisonment for not less than one (1) year." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-39-208(e).
In 1994, Plaintiff was convicted in the Ninth Judicial District for the State of Nevada of two counts of Lewdness with a Child Under the Age of Fourteen Years for conduct involving an eleven-year-old child. (Doc. No. 19-2 at 1). He was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and required to comply with Nevada's SORA requirements. (Id.). Plaintiff served his sentence, and in 2010, the Ninth Judicial District for the State of Nevada entered an order terminating Plaintiff's SORA compliance requirements. (Doc. No. 19-4).
In 2012, Plaintiff and his wife moved to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee to spend more time with their grandchildren. (Doc. No. 1 at ¶ 26). According to Plaintiff, in August 2014, a TBI representative informed Plaintiff that he did not have to register as a sex offender in order to comply with Tennessee's SORA; thus, Plaintiff did not do so. (Id. at ¶¶ 32-33). In November 2019, an officer with the Lawrenceburg Police Department called Plaintiff and informed him that he had twenty-four hours to vacate his residence and register as a sex offender. (Id. at ¶ 36). The officer informed him that he could not continue living in his house because it was too close to a school. (Id. at ¶ 37). Plaintiff began living out of his car. (Id. at ¶ 38).
In February 2020, Plaintiff was arrested and charged with SORA violations in Humphreys County, Tennessee. Plaintiff made bond shortly after being incarcerated. (Id. at ¶¶ 39-40). On July 21, 2020, Plaintiff was charged in Montgomery County, Tennessee with violating Tennessee's SORA. (Doc. No. 19-1 at ¶ 4). He is presently incarcerated on those charges. (Id.).
On July 17, 2020, Plaintiff filed his Complaint in this Court, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief prohibiting Defendants from continuing to enforce Tennessee's SORA regime against him in (alleged) violation of his constitutional right against ex post facto punishment. (Doc. No. 1 at ¶¶ 44-47). On August 17, 2020, Plaintiff filed the instant Motion, seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction prohibiting Defendants and their officers, agents, employees, servants, attorneys, and all persons in active concert or participation with them from continuing to enforce Tennessee's SORA against Plaintiff. (Doc. No. 16). After reviewing the Motion, the Court entered an order asking Defendants to respond to the Motion, and asking Plaintiff to reply thereafter, addressing "whether this Court should abstain from exercising its jurisdiction under the Younger abstention doctrine." See Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971)." (Doc. No. 20).2 Defendants responded asserting that the Court should indeed abstain from exercising jurisdiction pursuant to the Younger abstention doctrine and dismiss the action. (Doc. No. 21). In reply, Plaintiff contends that the Court should not abstain from exercising its jurisdiction here. (Doc. No. 22). Accordingly, this issue is ripe for adjudication.
In Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), the Supreme Court "held that absent extraordinary circumstances federal courts should not enjoin pending state criminal prosecutions." New Orleans Pub. Serv., Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans, 491 U.S. 350, 364 (1989). Theunderlying concern of Younger is the "threat to our federal system posed by displacement of state courts by those of the National Government." Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 423 (1979). Accordingly, "Younger abstention requires the federal court to defer to the state proceeding." Coles v. Granville, 448 F.3d 853, 865 (6th Cir. 2006). Younger abstention is applicable where three requirements are met: "(1) there must be on-going state judicial proceedings; (2) those proceedings must implicate important state interests; and (3) there must be an adequate opportunity in the state proceedings to raise constitutional challenges." O'Neill v. Coughlan, 511 F.3d 638, 643 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Sun Refining & Mktg. Co. v. Brennan, 921 F.2d 635, 639 (6th Cir. 1990)).
Exceptions to the Younger abstention doctrine have been recognized in the following circumstances: (1) where "the state proceeding is motivated by a desire to harass or is conducted in bad faith," Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 611 (1975); (2) where "[a] challenged statute is flagrantly and patently violative of express constitutional prohibitions," Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 424 (1979) (quoting Huffman, 420 U.S. at 611); and (3) where there is "an extraordinarily pressing need for immediate federal equitable relief," Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U.S. 117, 125 (1975). The exceptions to Younger have generally been interpreted narrowly by the Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit. Gorenc v. City of Westland, 72 F. App'x 336, 338-39 (6th Cir.2003) (citing Zalman v. Armstrong, 802 F.2d 199, 205 (6th Cir. 1986)). The plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating the existence of one of the exceptions to Younger abstention (if it is otherwise applicable). See Squire v. Coughlan, 469 F.3d 551, 552 (6th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted).
To determine whether state judicial proceedings are ongoing, generally "[c]ourts look to the moment the federal lawsuit was filed[.]" Hill, 878 F.3d at 205; see also O'Neill, 511 F.3d at 643 (); Fed. Exp. Corp. v. Tenn. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 925 F.2d 962, 969 (6th Cir. 1991) (). However, an exception to this rule is "where state criminal proceedings are begun against the federal plaintiffs after the federal complaint is filed but before any proceedings of substance on the merits have taken place in the federal court, [under those circumstances] the principles of Younger v. Harris should apply in full force." Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 349 (1975).
Here, Plaintiff acknowledges that he has incurred two recent criminal charges for violations of the SORA—the charge in Humphreys County filed in February 2020, and the charge in Montgomery County filed on July 21, 2020. Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit in federal court by filing his Complaint on July 19, 2020. Undoubtedly, the February 2020 Humphreys County charge occurred before this date. However, the current record evidence does not clearly demonstrate that this charge remains pending. Nevertheless, the July 21, 2020 Montgomery County charge plainly remains pending as evidence in the record reveals that Plaintiff is currently incarcerated on this charge. (Doc. No. 19-1 at ¶ 3). And although the charge was filed two days after Plaintiff filed his Complaint, the Court considers it an ongoing judicial proceeding for purposes of Younger because the criminal charge was brought very soon after the Complaint was filed and certainly "before any proceedings of substance on the merits have taken place." Hicks, 422 U.S. at 349; see also Kalniz v. Ohio State Dental Bd., 699 F. Supp. 2d 966, 971-72 (S.D. Ohio 2010) (...
To continue reading
Request your trial