In an effort to support Tennessee crime victims and prevent further trauma, Senator John Stevens (R-Huntingdon) is sponsoring a resolution seeking to add Marsy’s Law to the Tennessee Constitution to guarantee victims of crime have clear and enforceable rights.
This week, Marsy’s Law, House Joint Resolution 94, passed its first hurdle in the Senate with approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee. The measure aims to give constitutional protections to victims, including the right to be heard, the right to be informed, and the right to be treated with fairness, dignity, and respect through the judicial process.
Marsalee Nicholas’s family, who Marsy’s Law was named for, ran into the man who murdered Marsy a week after her death at the grocery store on the way back from her funeral. Marsy’s murderer was her ex-boyfriend, who stalked and killed her while she was a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1983. They were not notified that he was released on bail. Marsy’s Law seeks to ensure devastating and traumatic experiences like this never happen to victims in Tennessee.