Image Credit: Blount County Sheriff’s Office & Canva
Community members are outraged following the sentencing of a former Blount County teacher who pleaded guilty to five counts of offensive touching. A Class B misdemeanor in the state of Tennessee, the charges are only one step up from a speeding ticket according to a local commissioner.
Former PE teacher Joseph Dalton was sentenced to six months of supervised probation and may have his record entirely expunged due to the judge in the case granting Dalton a judicial diversion. Dalton will also have to undergo a psychosexual evaluation.
Two days after Dalton’s sentencing, Blount County residents protested the sentencing outside of the County Courthouse. Many in the community are particularly upset with the judicial diversion plea deal, allowing Dalton to keep his teaching license, and wanted to see him serve jail time and placed on the sex offender list.
Residents say that Dalton behaved inappropriately with students over the entire course of his career with Blount County Schools which ranged from 2004 to 2023. The earliest allegation dates back to 2005.
Despite his personnel file noting many incidents, Dalton was not terminated and instead was shuffled around to different elementary schools in the district. He was investigated in September of 2023 when five separate episodes were caught on camera, ultimately leading to his arrest.
In response to the light sentence, Blount County Commissioner Jared Anderson has offered up a resolution that will be heard at the Commissioner’s meeting on May 15th.
In a social media post, Anderson acknowledged that the resolution, if passed, will not fix the situation but instead will send a message to the Tennessee General Assembly that Tennesseans want laws strengthened so that predators like Dalton do not merely get a slap on the wrist in the future.
“One of the things that has become painfully clear to our community is that our laws do not go far enough to protect our children,” wrote Anderson. “Our community is rightfully outraged by what happened, and we stand with the victims in demanding that it never be allowed to happen again.”
Dalton was charged with an offense that criminalizes physical contact made intentionally that someone would find “extremely offensive or provocative” but which doesn’t make a distinction between adults and children.
Anderson’s resolution offers specific suggestions for changes to Tennessee statute including the creation of a separate, new offense specific to minors which would be classified as a more serious crime.
The resolution also calls for offenders to lose their teaching licenses, excludes the offense from judicial diversion, and ensures that a conviction results in a record that cannot be expunged.
In addition, Anderson calls for requiring school districts to track personnel complaints, report them to a centralized state database, and have that database accessible to all Tennessee school systems making it harder for predatory teachers to simply switch districts and continue hurting the students in their care.
Blount County District Attorney Ryan Desmond also supports amending the law to “address scenarios wherein a person in a position of trust has inappropriate contact with children in their care.”
Desmond became aware of Dalton’s behavior, and of past allegations against him, in 2023 and directed his criminal investigator to pull surveillance videos to review.
“Tennessee criminal laws on sexual battery require contact with the “intimate parts” of a victim. None of the videos or subsequent evidence for these allegations showed that the teacher in question had touched the “intimate parts” of any of the students involved,” Desmond stated while explaining why Dalton didn’t receive a stricter sentence. “While the teacher’s conduct was concerning and inappropriate, it did not qualify as sexual battery or any other sexual offense under current Tennessee law.”
Believing action against Dalton was warranted, the District Attorney’s office researched state law and found that the facts and evidence before them meant that Dalton could only be charged with assault through offensive touching, which carries a maximum penalty of six months.
While acknowledging that any sentence Dalton received would be minimal, “doing nothing was not an option I could accept,” said Desmond.
“The law for these crimes, as it currently exists, is clearly insufficient,” Desmond concluded. “Despite that inadequacy, when faced with this issue I ultimately made the decision that some action had to be taken. I stand by that decision.”
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
