Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee quietly kills clemency initiative for drug-free school zone offenders

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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee quietly kills clemency initiative for drug-free school zone offenders

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has quietly ended a fast-track clemency process for drug-free school zone offenders who were serving outdated sentences. Lee announced the initiative in 2021, after the Tennessee Legislature passed reforms to the state's harsh drug-free school zone laws. But those reforms were initially not made retractive, leaving more than 300 people serving sentences that were no longer on the books. The expedited clemency p…