Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said a resolution in the Tennessee General Assembly that would amend the state’s constitution to allow judges the discretion to refuse bail to defendants facing certain charges would not lead to overcrowding in jails across the state.
Senate Joint Resolution 25 would modify 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.”
If passed by both the Tennessee Senate and House of Representatives by a two-thirds majority this legislative session, the resolution will be presented to voters on the 2026 statewide general election ballot for Tennesseans to pass or reject.
While the resolution has earned support from Republican leadership in the General Assembly, one member of the party – State Senate Judiciary Chairman Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) – has publicly opposed the resolution, arguing that the proposed constitutional change would result in rural county jails being overwhelmed with inmates.
Pappert, however, disputed Gardenhire’s claim, explaining that the increase of inmates that would be generated by the resolution seems unlikely to overcrowd county jails throughout the state based on data collected from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Tennessee Department of Corrections.
“When you break it down, this would have resulted in the year 2022 which is the most recent year of arrest data from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation; just over 9,000 total new people were eligible to have their bail denied. The Department of Justice has told us that’s about 25 percent of the time that a judge will actually say, ‘I’m denying you bail…on a non capital murder case.’ So that takes us down to about 2,200 people,” Pappert explained on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
When capital murder cases are taken into consideration, Pappert said the number of defendants eligible for their bail to be denied increases to approximately 3,600 – which is far below the 5,000 open beds in jails across the state.
“So then you say capital murder cases were already eligible for bail to be declined in the state of Tennessee. That’s what the Constitution says today, so let’s take in and figure out how many of these are second degree murder. Again, the Department of Justice says about half of all murder cases end up being prosecuted as second degree versus first degree murder. So again, about half of those, it ends up getting in a very high end scenario. A total of 3,600 people could have been denied bail or would have or could have potentially been denied bail had this been in place in 2022,” Pappert said.
“The Tennessee Department of Corrections keeps tabs on the jails throughout the state and as of December, there were about 5,000 open beds across the state. Now, of course, there’s overcrowding in Memphis, there’s overcrowding in Nashville, but across the state, jail cells had room. Todd Gardenhire says he’s mostly concerned about rural jail cells. Those are some of the jails that appear to have the most room,” Pappert added.
The resolution will be debated among the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
