Marsalee Nicholas was a 21-year-old California college student when she was stalked and murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 1983. A week after her death, on the way from her funeral service, Marsy’s family members were confronted by her ex-boyfriend at a market. They had not been notified of his release.
From that incident, a national movement called Marsy’s Law was born. For decades, lawmakers in states across the country have pushed for rights for crime victims and their families so they feel more protected within the criminal justice system. In the upcoming election, Tennesseans will be asked to consider a version of Marsy’s Law in the form of Amendment #3, which would add more rights for victims to the Tennessee Constitution.
Tennessee added eight such rights in 1998 through an amendment vote. Those include the right to confer with prosecutors, the right to be free from harassment and intimidation and the right to be informed of all proceedings and of the release of the accused or convicted person. But to advocates of Marsy’s Law, those measures do not go far enough and are not enforceable.
The 1998 amendment “has been demonstrably inadequate, unenforceable and in practice, mainly aspirational,” Sen. John Stevens, R-Huntingdon, said as he co-sponsored the Amendment #3 resolution in 2024. The new amendment will give victims “meaningful and enforceable constitutional rights and protections.”
Amendment #3, if approved, would clarify some of the existing victims’ rights and add rights regarding parole proceedings. Victims would be informed about parole proceedings, they would be able to participate in the parole process and their safety would be considered in parole decisions. The amendment, comprised of 13 rights, also expands the scope of victims to include those impacted by juvenile offenders, a part of the criminal justice system not mentioned currently in the victims’ bill of rights.
“If you have been violently attacked, you don’t really care if the person is 21 or 14 or 16. The age does not matter. You want to know if that attacker is being released, whatever their age group,” former Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, said in 2023 as she sponsored the amendment resolution.
Amendment #3 also allows victims to opt in to receiving information. Some victims do not want to be notified about developments and they must actively opt out under current law, Stevens said.
“A victim shouldn’t have to be re-victimized against their wishes,” Stevens said in 2024.
Several victims’ rights are part of the current Tennessee Code, including the right to be informed of bail hearings and dismissals. The code also requires victim-witness coordinators in each judicial district and spells out their duties in assisting victims with notifications and obtaining restitution. Those statutes have sometimes failed to ensure victim’s rights are fully protected, said Bonnie Brezina, who leads the Marsy’s Law for Tennessee initiative.
“Crime victims in Tennessee are overdue on some serious, serious changes,” Brezina said.
The resolutions backing the amendment’s place on Tennessee ballots easily passed through the Tennessee General Assembly in 2024 and 2025, with only a handful of senators voting against it. There was little pushback on the content, but a few Democrat lawmakers disagreed with the need for a constitutional amendment, rather than strengthening state statutes, and questioned how the state would cover additional costs that Tennessee courts might face from the amendment.
“We can make the statute even stronger as time goes by,” Sen. Sara Kyle, D-Memphis, said as the resolution was debated in 2024. “Should we need to once again come back and change the Constitution, that takes time.” She added, “In the long run, this could hurt the victims. We could be unintentionally taking away rights that we could add year after year after year, and we’re going to be limited by just what you have to go in the Constitution now. This puts us in a bind.”
California was the first state to pass Marsy’s Law in 2008, and 12 other states have since passed versions into their constitutions, Brezina said.
In Florida, where a Marsy’s Law constitutional amendment was approved in 2018, police agencies applied the law to protect officers’ identities by considering them victims when they used lethal force in the field. The issue has gone before the state Supreme Court, which struck down part of the amendment, and Florida lawmakers have since approved statute changes meant to address privacy issues for officers.
Tennessee’s proposed constitutional amendment does not contain the same language used by Florida preventing the disclosure of victims’ records or information, a point that Stevens emphasized to fellow lawmakers in 2024.
For the amendment to pass, it must receive more “yes” than “no” votes and the “yes” votes must be more than half of all votes cast in the governor’s race.
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