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Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Carol Chumney will spend the next month deliberating on if Tennessee’s stand-your-ground law applies to Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant’s civil assault case and if now is the proper time to determine the constitutionality of that law.
An attorney for Joshua Holloway, a young basketball player who alleges Morant punched him during a pickup basketball game at Morant’s home in Eads last year, has argued that Tennessee’s stand-your-ground law is not applicable to the civil case and that if it were to be applicable it would be unconstitutional.
For Rebecca Adelman, Holloway’s attorney, the stand-your-ground law — also known as the self-defense immunity statute — is meant “to prevent defendants who engaged in justified force from incurring significant legal expenses while also defending themselves in criminal proceedings.”
“Discussions further confirmed that no part of [the self-defense immunity statute] create criminal immunity for use of justified force, but that use of justified force was an affirmative defense that could be raised in a criminal proceeding,” Adelman wrote in her reply brief. “The statute was never intended to create immunity for someone claiming self-defense after punching a minor in the head or face.”
Adelman, in court Thursday afternoon, played audio from the Tennessee General Assembly discussing the nature of the bill, which she said was important to account for when ruling on the law’s applicability to Morant’s case. In the audio, state officials could be heard saying that the law allows cases to be stayed for the duration of a related criminal investigation.
She also pointed to the law being part of Tennessee’s criminal code, and not in the civil code, as another reason for the law not applying to Morant.
Arguments over ‘ripeness’
Discussions over the correct time to hear arguments on the law’s constitutionality were also a focal point for Adelman, who said that Holloway would be unfairly prejudiced if an immunity hearing took place prior to a hearing on the constitutionality of the law.
That harm, she said, would come from the potential that the case would be dismissed and Holloway would have to pay damages and attorney’s fees due to a law she argues is unconstitutional.
Both attorneys for Morant and the Tennessee Attorney’s General Office, who joined the case to advocate for the stand-your-ground law, said that the law’s constitutionality should be a last-resort argument. Cody Brandon with the state attorney’s general office said in court Thursday that the court should get to “the precipice” of a decision before hearing constitutional arguments.
The reasoning for that, both attorneys said, hinges upon a legal concept known as the “ripeness” of an issue. This occurs when the existing facts of a case have become an existing controversy. For the AG’s office and Morant’s attorneys, the mere possibility that the judge could rule that the stand-your-ground law is applicable here, and later rule that Morant has immunity under it, is not enough to challenge the law’s constitutionality.
“First, Tennessee courts ask whether the claim is based on an existing legal controversy, or on hypothetical and contingent, future events that may never occur,” Will Perry, an attorney for Morant, said Thursday. “If a claim is based on hypothetical and contingent future events that may never occur, then the claim lacks ‘fitness for judicial decision.'”
Perry also disputed that deciding whether or not Morant has immunity prior to a constitutional challenge harms Holloway.
“Your honor, Mr. Morant is one of the best and most famous basketball players in the world,” Perry said. “He plays pickup games at his home precisely to avoid fights and other problems that might occur at public facilities. Mr. Morant invited plaintiff into his home. He gave him new shoes. His father cooked for plaintiff and the other players. And the thanks Mr. Morant got — in his own home, in front of his family — was a smack in the face with a basketball, a threat to his life and a lawsuit. Your Honor, the only hardship at issue in this case is Mr. Morant’s. Plaintiff is away playing division one basketball in Alabama while his lawyers are in here claiming that plaintiff is permanently injured after he attacked his host, at his host’s home. The Tennessee General Assembly decided that defendants like Mr. Morant deserve to be able to defend themselves and deserve to prove that they acted in self defense.”
Attorneys trade jabs
The AG’s office did not take a stance on whether the law applies to Morant’s case, but Morant’s attorneys argued that a subsection of the law made it applicable to Morant’s civil case, regardless of its location in the criminal code. Perry also said Adelman’s argument over the legislative intent of the law cannot be considered by Chumney since Adelman was in agreement that the law was unambiguous.
That would mean, according to Perry, that Chumney should only interpret the plain language of the law.
Perry did, however, take a moment when discussing the bill’s sponsor testimony to jab at Adelman’s lawsuit.
“It’s plain language, is what guides the court’s understanding of legislation,” Perry said. “I’ll say one last thing, your honor. Although the captions and the legislative history, the summary and the bill’s sponsor testimony aren’t relevant here, I have to say that it’s pretty hilarious that one of the things we heard plays is that the bill is intended to stop frivolous lawsuits. And perhaps there’s no greater likelihood that a civil lawsuit will be frivolous than when there has been a criminal investigation that has resulted in zero charges, and yet a civil action based on the same conduct at issue persists. That is a ridiculous circumstance, that it appears the legislature had in mind when it designed this statute.”
Adelman and Morant’s attorneys, Perry and Keenan Carter, have had testy moments throughout the lawsuit, which was filed in September 2022. In response to Perry’s remarks, Adelman said she was taking the lawsuit seriously.
“I just really, for the record, want to state that I don’t think there’s anything hilarious about any of this,” Adelman said in court. “I just really want to sort of compel more gravitas around these arguments.”
Chumney is set to rule on the law’s applicability on Nov. 16 at 10:30 a.m., and her ruling will set the pace for the trial moving forward.
It has been over a year since the alleged assault took place at Morant’s home, where court documents say Holloway threw a basketball at Morant’s head. Morant then, according to documents, swung at Holloway. Davonte Pack, a close friend of Morant’s, then hit Holloway, who fell over after the hit according to depositions.
As Holloway was leaving the court, multiple witnesses said they heard Holloway say he was going to “light this place up like fireworks,” which they took to mean he would shoot up the house.
No charges were filed against Morant and Pack for months. But an arrest warrant was issued for Pack July 10, just days before the statute of limitations for assault would have run out. The warrant charged Pack with one count of simple assault.
Pack was released on his own recognizance, and is due for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 21. Morant was not criminally charged, and the statute of limitations has since run out.
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.
