Tennessee House Bill HB0403

Tennessee 2025-2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 1/28/25
• Refer: 2/5/25
• Refer: 2/26/25
• Refer: 3/5/25

Caption

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 39, Chapter 13 and Title 40, relative to criminal offenses.

Summary

HB0403 amends Tennessee criminal law by increasing the penalty for a specific offense in Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-13-605(d)(1)(A) from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class D felony. The bill also deletes subdivisions (d)(2) and (d)(3) of that same section, which suggests a restructuring or narrowing of the existing penalty framework for that offense. The bill takes effect July 1, 2025, and applies only to offenses committed on or after that date. As a result, conduct occurring before that date would remain subject to the prior misdemeanor penalty, while future violations would face felony-level consequences under the amended statute.

Impact

The bill would directly change the criminal classification and sentencing exposure for the offense covered by § 39-13-605(d)(1)(A), moving it from misdemeanor to felony status and removing related statutory subdivisions. This would affect defendants charged under that provision, prosecutors, courts, and correctional systems by increasing potential punishment and collateral consequences associated with a felony conviction.

Sentiment

The available voting history shows strong support in committee, with unanimous or near-unanimous favorable recommendations in both the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee and the House Judiciary Committee. No committee transcript is available, so there is no recorded floor-level debate or detailed public discussion in the provided materials. Overall, the bill appears to have been received positively by the committees that considered it.

Contention

No specific points of contention are documented in the provided transcripts, and the recorded committee votes were unanimous. The main substantive issue implied by the bill is whether the targeted offense should be treated as a misdemeanor or elevated to a felony, but the available materials do not show any member raising objections, concerns about proportionality, or debate over the deletion of subdivisions (d)(2) and (d)(3).