Second domestic violence bill fails in Senate Judiciary Committee
The second of two bills intended to protect victims of domestic violence from defendants on bail stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Shane Reeves, R-murfreesboro, would have required defendants charged with domestic violence of any kind to wear a GPS monitor as a condition of bail.
A prior version of the bill, also sponsored by Reeves, would have made the GPS monitor mandatory only for domestic violence defendants accused of strangulation or of threatening their victim with a firearm. Reeves expanded the bill at the recommendation of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Reeves’ amended bill received four votes in favor and four votes against, meaning it will stay in committee.
Related legislation, which would have required magistrates to set higher bail for domestic violence defendants charged with strangulation or threats with a firearm, also failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
Sen. Mike Bell, R-riceville, who is also the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, voted against both bills.
“I can’t support your bill because of the removal of judicial discretion,” he told Reeves on Tuesday.
Bell described a case, brought to his attention by a judge, where police misidentified the true perpetrator of abuse and mistakenly arrested the victim. A GPS tracker in this case would have allowed the perpetrator to monitor the movements of their victim, the opposite of the bill’s original intent.
Bell also said that parts of some rural counties in Tennessee lack cell phone access, which would render a GPS monitor useless.
‘It could have saved her life’
Reeves said he introduced the bill after he was approached by Alex Youn, whose sister, Marie Varsos, was fatally shot in April 2021 by her estranged husband, Shaun Varsos.
Shaun Varsos stalked his wife repeatedly and waited outside her home for 45 minutes before the fatal shooting, according to police.
“In this situation, if this lady would have known that he (Shaun Varsos) was there, it clearly could have saved her life,” Reeves said.
Varsos’ mother, Debbie Sisco, was also killed in the attack. Shaun Varsos then shot himself, police said.
Youn believes his sister and mother would still be alive had they been notified of Shaun Varsos’ presence through GPS tracking.
He said current law allows for magistrates to consider equipping domestic violence defendants with GPS monitors as a condition of release, but that the monitors are almost never used.
A pilot program in Shelby County found that from 2016-2019 domestic violence defendants monitored with a GPS device were more likely to be arrested for violating their bail, and less likely to succeed in repeating an attack.
“That would have discouraged my brother-in-law and, frankly, would discourage other offenders from doing any harm to the victim,” Youn said.