Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-527

Sexual battery by an authority figure

Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Doe v. Bredesen (2007)

Most recently applied in State of Tennessee v. Jimmy Dale Qualls (January 2016)

Acts 1997, ch. 256, § 1; 1998, ch. 1034, § 1; 2005, ch. 478, § 1; 2006, ch. 897, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Sexual battery by an authority figure is unlawful sexual contact with a victim by the defendant or the defendant by a victim accompanied by the following circumstances: The victim was, at the time of the offense, thirteen (13) years of age or older but less then eighteen (18) years of age; or

(2) The victim was, at the time of the offense, mentally defective, mentally incapacitated or physically helpless, regardless of age; and,

(3) The defendant was at the time of the offense in a position of trust, or had supervisory or disciplinary power over the victim by virtue of the defendant's legal, professional or occupational status and used the position of trust or power to accomplish the sexual contact; or

(4) The defendant had, at the time of the offense, parental or custodial authority over the victim and used the authority to accomplish the sexual contact.

(5) Sexual battery by an authority figure is a Class C felony.

Current official text: Tennessee Code (LexisNexis). Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Tennessee statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.