Tag Archives: tennessee

Tennesseans – VOTE NO – Amendment ONE

By Connie Reguli, J.D.

If you go to the Secretary of State website you will find a description of the THREE constitutional amendments that will appear on the November 2026 ballot.

I am going to tell you about AMENDMENT ONE – The Court’s discretion to DENY BAIL prior to conviction. The Website reads:

Constitutional Amendment #1

As proposed by SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 919 (113th) & SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 25 (114th)

Summary:

This amendment changes Article I, section 15 of the Tennessee Constitution by allowing a court to hold a defendant without bail before trial when that defendant is accused of: an offense punishable by the death penalty, an act of terrorism, second degree murder, aggravated rape of a child, aggravated rape, grave torture, or any crime for which a convicted person would be required to serve eighty-five percent of their sentence.  This amendment requires courts to state on the record the reasons for their decision to grant or deny bail in those cases.

Question:

Shall Article I, Section 15 of the Constitution of Tennessee be amended by deleting the following:

That all prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offences, when the proof is evident, or the presumption great. And the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of rebellion or invasion, the General Assembly shall declare the public safety requires it.

and substituting instead the following:

(a) All prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties unless for the following when the proof is evident or the presumption great:

(1) A capital offense;

(2) An act of terrorism;

(3) Second degree murder;

(4) Aggravated rape of a child;

(5) Aggravated rape;

(6) Grave torture; and

(7) Any other offense for which, as of November 3, 2026, a defendant, if convicted, could not be released prior to the expiration of at least eighty-five percent of the entire sentence imposed.

(b) In any case in which bail for an offense listed in subsection (a) is granted or denied before conviction, the judge or magistrate shall place in the record the judge’s or magistrate’s reasons for granting or denying bail.

(c) The privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of rebellion or invasion, the General Assembly shall declare the public safety requires it.

WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE NO………………

1 – “ANY OTHER OFFENSE for which, as of November 3, 2026, a defendant, if convicted, could not be released prior to the expiration of at least eighty-five percent of the entire sentence imposed.”

YOU, as an average Tennessee voter, have NO IDEA what that means. You must ask yourself, do I know what “crimes” are covered here? If you do not, you must VOTE NO.

The truth is that “any other offense” will cover about multiple criminal offenses not listed in the amendment.

This website describes some of them. Another website provides this list:

  1. Aggravated assault (involving a deadly weapon, strangulation, or attempted strangulation)
  2. Aggravated assault that results in serious bodily injury
  3. Aggravated assault against a first responder or nurse if the offense involves a deadly weapon, strangulation, or attempted strangulation
  4. Aggravated assault against a first responder or nurse resulting in serious bodily injury or death
  5. Voluntary manslaughter
  6. Vehicular homicide as a result other than driver’s intoxication
  7. Reckless homicide
  8. Aggravated kidnapping
  9. Involuntary labor servitude
  10. Trafficking persons for forced labor or services
  11. Aggravated robbery
  12. Aggravated burglary
  13. Aggravated arson
  14. Possession of a firearm during the commission or attempt of a dangerous felony
  15. The manufacture, delivery, or sale of a controlled substance where the offense is classified as a Class A, B, or C felony, and the person has two or more convictions for the manufacture, delivery, or sale of a controlled substance classified as a Class A, B, or C felony prior to or at the time of committing the new offense

These offenses, while sounding serious, can be a first offense, or even be a crime brought with insufficient evidence.

2 – This constitutional amendment also creates TWO new standards of proof: “the proof is evident or the presumption great”

If you do not understand “the proof is evident” or “the presumption is great”, you must VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT ONE. Now I am not saying that “the proof is evident or the presumption is great” was invented by the Tennessee General Assembly. It was not. Other states, like Arizona, have enacted constitutional amendments denying bail for multiple offenses using this standard. In Arizona, the Courts said the “proof evident and presumption great” standard requires a finding that all of the evidence, fully considered by the court, makes is plain and clear to the understanding…[and] dispassionate judgment of the court that the accused committed one of the offences enumerated.” THIS sounds like a trial “on the merits” of the case WITHOUT the benefit of defendant receiving a copy of the State’s evidence in discovery and WITHOUT exercising his right to a jury trial on the facts of the case.

Of course, if you are not an attorney – you may not even understand what I mean by “standard of proof”. So let me elaborate. In law, there is ALWAYS a burden of proof and a standard of proof. In criminal law, the STATE always has the burden of proof. The STATE must prove their case. The defendant has NO burden to prove their innocence. The STATE must prove their case by “beyond a reasonable doubt” on EVERY element of the crime. This is the highest standard of proof in law. Also in criminal law, the defendant always has the right to a jury on the elements of the crime.

When a citizen is arrested or indicted for a crime, the STATE must have “probable cause” of a crime. This probable cause determination is made by a magistrate in an arrest warrant and by a grand jury in an indictment. This is a lower burden of proof in criminal prosecution. The magistrate decides is there is probable case based on the sworn testimony of the police officer or complaining citizen. In Tennessee’s secret grand jury process, twelve citizens are lead by the prosecutor (district attorney) to see the specific criminal code that the STATE wants to rely on and hears the evidence of law enforcement or witnesses. This is ALL done in SECRET and the defendant is never even able to get a transcript or know WHO testified against them. There is no protection against false testimony or false evidence or an incompetent prosecutor.

Many defendants charged with crimes are NOT guilty. That is just the truth.

Now the constitutional amendment creates two new standards of proof that have never been tested by litigation and the Tennessee appellate process.

Back to Arizona. The Arizona, the citizens passed Proposition 103, which denied bail for a designated line of offenses. The rhetoric to the citizens and proposed amendment was to “protect public safety by preventing defendants from committing future crimes.” See State of Arizona v. Martinez, AZ. Sup. Ct. February 9, 2017. Similar to Tennessee’s proposed amendment, it required a full blown adversarial hearing which did not require a finding that the defendant “posed a danger to specific individuals or the community”, it did require the same standard proposed in Tennessee, that “proof is evident or presumption is great” that the person committed the offense charged. The Arizona Supreme Court found that the denial of bail on this standard was facially unconstitutional under a “legitimate and compelling” standard of review when the law was challenged for a denial of bail on the offense of committing a sexual conduct with a minor. If the state’s “regulatory” intent was to protect the public, and not to punish the accused, the Arizona constitutional requirement was “not narrowly focused given alternatives that would serve the state’s objective equally well at less cost to individual liberty.”

Also, consider the requirement on the court system to make the determination of “proof is evident or presumption is great” – this will require a full blown evidentiary hearing on the evidence the State has acquired to prosecute the defendant. Often, the State does not even turn over their evidence to defense counsel for months. Will the courts require defendants to proceed through this evidentiary hearing without the State’s evidence, which includes physical evidence taken into evidence (like weapons, biological samples), forensic testing (which often takes months), witness statements, and other investigation results.

There are some defense lawyers that will say “yeah” – because they know the State often is lacking evidence needed to prosecute.

Others defense attorneys will say “nay” because this is a mini-trial, denying their client the right to a jury trial on the factual findings of the case. Tenn. Rules of Criminal Proc. 23. So, a defendant will be required to permit a judge (without a jury) to rule on the facts of his case. The same judge that will preside over the jury trial. It is nonsense to believe that the judge will not be influenced by what he has already heard in the bail hearing. The judge will have already been required to make an order with findings of facts. Then in a jury trial, he will be ruling on evidence and jury instructions.

3 – If you don’t know, VOTE NO.

This constitutional amendment carries complex implications. Sometimes citizens just don’t understand the long term effects of changes to the constitution. In this case, there will be fiscal implications that the taxpayers will be required to carry: increased court time and increased incarceration rate. There will be pressures put on defendants to settle with pleas that do not reflect the truth but relieve defendants of long-term incarceration before they even have a trial. There will be innocent citizens incarcerated for months and years before their trials.

I will leave you with these comments made by Tennessee legislators. Remember neither Sen. Jack Johnson nor Rep. Justin Pearson are lawyers and have never defended someone accused of a crime. Your legislators have a duty to educate you and if they cannot you should not endorse their decision. IF YOU DON’T KNOW, VOTE NO.

ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST AMENDMENT ONE

Supporters of Amendment 1 say it will benefit public safety by keeping dangerous individuals in custody before their trial. Tennessee Voices for Victims Co-Founder Verna Wyatt said, “People are sick of hearing stories about innocent people being killed, raped, or severely injured by someone who’s out on bond.”[4] State Sen. Jack Johnson (R-27) stated that Amendment 1 would give the courts the tools they need to create a safer society. He said, “Our number one job up here is public safety, and it is to equip our court system with the tools they need to keep our community safe. Unfortunately, they don’t have those tools right now, or all that they need. They’re hamstrung by the constitution.”[5]

Jeffrey Clayton of the American Bail Coalition, who opposes Amendment 1, stated that denying defendants a right to bail will not benefit public safety. He said, “There’s been no academic research that supports the use of preventative detention as a defective crime control policy.”[4] State Rep. Justin Pearson (D-86) said, “Judges are imperfect people with their own biases as well that they bring into the courtroom, and there can again be a disproportionate harm on poor folks, a disproportionate harm on Black folks, on Latino folks.”[6]

By Connie Reguli, J.D.

After 28 years of protecting Tennessee citizens from their government, I was falsely arrested and convicted on a crime that did not exist. When I beat them, they stole my law license. Their is no First Amendment protection for attorneys in the State of Tennessee.

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How the American the court system was weaponized in different parts of the country against women (both septuagenarians with no criminal history) and the parallels of abuse by the court system to silence, make a mockery, and discredit these citizens that spoke out for truth

By Connie Reguli

Two women in their seventies. No criminal history. No violent past. No cartel ties or organized‑crime connections. Just grandmothers who dared to ask hard questions about what their government was doing—and the system came down on them like they were enemies of the state.

That is what happened to Tina Peters in Colorado and to me, Connie Reguli, in Tennessee. And conservatives across the country need to understand what these cases really show: the justice system is being weaponized to make examples of dissenters, especially women who refuse to sit down and shut up.

Tina Peters listens during her trial in Grand Junction, Colorado, on March 3, 2023. 
Scott Crabtree/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel/Pool/AP/File

When “wrongthink” becomes a factor in a Court’s punitive actions

In Colorado, Tina Peters was prosecuted for alleged conduct related to election‑system data. But the most chilling part of her case wasn’t the charges—it was how the court talked about her after the conviction.

Instead of confining itself to the actual offenses, the sentencing judge fixated on her speech: her public statements about election integrity, her continuing activism, her refusal to renounce her beliefs about the 2020 election. In other words, her politics. Her voice.

The message from the bench was unmistakable: if you keep talking like this, if you keep rallying people, if you won’t recant, we will make you pay. The court took what should be core First Amendment activity—political speech, organizing, advocacy—and treated it as if it were an aggravating factor, as if her ideas themselves made her more dangerous.

That is not how a free country behaves. That is how a regime behaves when it wants to scare others into silence.

When public records become a threat

In Tennessee, my “crime” was asking for public records and using the courts to enforce the law that gives citizens the right to see how their government is spending their money. The trial court dismissed my case, fined me 5,000 dollars, and went even further: it tried to restrict my ability to file future cases without bringing in another lawyer.

Think about that: a sitting judge using sanctions not just to punish a particular filing, but to put a long‑term block on a citizen’s access to the courts.

Why? Not because I assaulted anyone. Not because I threatened anyone. But because I was using public records to expose how officials were spending taxpayer money and to challenge what I believed were wrongful government actions. My motives—my intention to speak, to criticize, to advocate—were treated as evidence of “improper purpose.”

In plain terms: the court didn’t like what I was doing with the truth once I got it.

Parallel abuses, different zip codes

Look at the pattern:

·      In Colorado, a woman in her seventies is effectively punished for her political beliefs and for continuing to speak them out loud.

·      In Tennessee, a woman in her seventies is punished for seeking public records and using them to challenge government conduct, with the court trying to close the courthouse doors behind her.

Different states, different issues, same underlying message: if you push too hard against the official narrative—about elections, about government spending, about public institutions—we will make an example out of you.

This is not just about one election or one county commission. It is about the state using the immense power of courts not to neutrally apply law, but to police thought and punish disfavored activism. It is about judges stepping out of their role as referees and becoming enforcers of “acceptable” opinions.

Silencing, humiliating, and discrediting

Weaponized justice doesn’t always look like secret police or midnight raids. Sometimes it wears a black robe and uses respectable language.

It looks like:

·      Turning political speech into a justification for harsher punishment.

·      Treating lawful public‑records requests as “bad faith” because the requester plans to expose government misconduct.

·      Imposing massive fines on ordinary citizens to send a message: don’t try this again.

·      Placing special restrictions on a disfavored litigant’s ability to even enter a courtroom.

And it doesn’t stop with the penalties. The public narrative is part of the punishment. Label the person “conspiracy theorist.” Call her “vexatious.” Paint her as “dangerous to democracy.” Make her a punchline in the media. Then, when she is dragged through the system, the public has already been taught to laugh or look away.

That is how you make a mockery of citizens who speak up for what they believe is true. That is how you discredit them so thoroughly that other people say, “I’m not putting my family through that. I’ll just keep my head down.”

WHY AMERICANS SHOULD CARE ABOUT TWO GRANDMOTHERS WHO SPOKE OUT…..

You don’t have to agree with every word Tina Peters has ever said about elections. You don’t have to support every argument I’ve made about child welfare or county spending. The question is more basic: do you believe the state should be allowed to punish citizens for what they say, what they investigate, and what they plan to expose?

Today it is two women in their seventies—grandmothers, professionals, with no criminal history—hauled into court, sanctioned, threatened, and publicly smeared for refusing to abandon their convictions. Tomorrow it can be you, your pastor, your school‑board candidate, your local activist who dares to ask the wrong questions.

If we allow courts to become tools of political and bureaucratic retaliation, we will lose not just cases, but our country’s character.

The justice system is not supposed to be a weapon wielded against inconvenient citizens. It is supposed to be a shield for their rights—even when those citizens are loud, persistent, and unwilling to bow to the approved narrative.

The question for conservatives is simple: will we defend that principle only in campaign speeches, or will we demand it in courtrooms—where it matters most?

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Sixth Circuit Case Tests Whether Officials Can Be Immune for “Rewriting” Criminal Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ohio/Tennessee – A forthcoming oral argument in Reguli & Hancock v. Hetzel, et al. on March 19, 2026, will test the outer limits of immunity for prosecutors and other state officials accused of weaponizing the criminal justice system against a critic of tax-funded child‑welfare practices.

Connie Reguli, a firebrand Tennessee attorney who had publicly challenged the Department of Children’s Services, and her client, Wendy Hancock, were indicted for custodial interference after Reguli helped Hancock contest a secret ex parte removal order obtained by federal defendant, and state attorney, Tracy Hetzel, even after Reguli made several attempts to cooperate with the state agency investigation. 

The indictment cited the statute for custodial interference, but District Attorneys Kimberly Helper and Mary Katherine Evins surgically removed an essential element of the crime in the language of the indictment—“after the expiration of the noncustodial parent’s lawful period of visitation”—even though officials knew there was no visitation order at all. The grand jury relied on the flawed language to find probable cause and thus, initiating a totally fraudulent prosecution. 

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately reversed both convictions, holding that Hancock’s conduct was not criminal, and therefore, Reguli could not be guilty as an accessory to a non‑crime. Yet when Reguli and Hancock sued, the federal district court granted absolute immunity to the prosecutors and qualified immunity to the DCS lawyer and Brentwood Police, reasoning that there was no clearly established precedent addressing the fabrication of a crime, as opposed to the fabrication of evidence.

The federal civil rights case was filed in May 2024 claiming that the defendants had violated their Fourth Amendment rights with a malicious prosecution. These defendants, prosecutors Kimberly Helper and Mary Katherine Evins, DCS attorney Tracy Hetzel, and Brentwood Police Lori Russ and David O’Neil, had worked collectively and cohesively to carry on a fake trial for over five years.  The Tennessee taxpayers paid thousands of dollars to investigate, prosecute, and appeal.  In the end, it was all theater.  But in doing so, they were able to shut down Reguli’s law practice, dismantle her reputation, and cost dozens of clients their attorney in the midst of contentious litigation. 

The plaintiffs argue this is precisely the kind of “obvious” constitutional violation that needs no case on all fours to “clearly establish” the rights of citizens.  Here, long‑standing rules already forbid prosecuting conduct that is not legislatively defined as a crime, and black‑letter law and ethics rules bar prosecutors from pursuing charges without probable cause.

“If this conduct is protected by immunity, then the promise that ‘no one is above the law’ rings hollow,” said counsel for the plaintiffs. “Officials will be free to re‑write criminal statutes on paper to fit their targets, knowing that—even if an appellate court later fixes the criminal conviction—the victims will have no civil remedy. Citizens who suffer the loss and damage of a malicious prosecution will have no recourse.” 

The Sixth Circuit’s ruling will not only determine whether Ms. Reguli and Ms. Hancock can proceed to discovery and trial, but may also clarify how far absolute and qualified immunity extend when officials are alleged to have used their authority to fabricate, rather than enforce, the law.

For more information or to arrange interviews after oral argument, interested media and advocacy groups may contact counsel for the plaintiffs.

Connie Reguli can be found on social media platforms and operates the Family Forward Project on Facebook.