A federal court in Nashville has officially terminated a short-lived, controversial program for inmates in White County, which offered reduced misdemeanor sentences for those who agreed to birth control implants or vasectomies.
The ruling comes nearly two years after three inmates — who refused to participate in the program — sued the White County judge who created it and the Sheriff’s Office.
General Sessions Judge Sam Benningfield ended the program in 2017, just months after it began,
following media scrutiny. He said he introduced it because he was tired of removing children from repeat offenders who appeared in his court.
Critics called it a “modern-day eugenics program” that violated constitutional rights.
In 2018, a federal judge ruled the original lawsuit was moot because the program had been canceled. The Tennessee legislature also passed a law that says judges cannot consider sterilization as part of sentencing going forward.
But an appeals court last month said the claims in the lawsuit still needed to be resolved.
The lawyer who represented the inmates says the recent ruling also requires Benningfield and the White County Sheriff to pay his fees and the costs of the lawsuit.
This post has been revised for clarity.
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