Aleta Arthur Trauger

Education and career

Trauger was born in Denver, Colorado.

She was a law clerk and associate in private practice at Barrett Brandt & Barrett in Tennessee from 1974 to 1977. In late 1977, U.S. Attorney Hal Hardin hired her as a federal prosecutor; Trauger has credited this case with establishing her reputation and credibility in a male-dominated profession.

She was one of the founding members of the Tennessee Lawyers' Association for Women, established July 7, 1989.

Notable cases On March 22, 2000, Trauger heard her first case from the District bench involving the death penalty. Coe's attorneys had claimed he was not mentally competent, but did not prove that to Trauger's satisfaction, so she lifted the stay.

On March 14, 2014, in the case Tanco, et al. v. Haslam, et al., Trauger issued a preliminary injunction ordering Tennessee to recognize the marriages of three same-sex couples consummated out-of-state. In her ruling, Trauger did not directly hold Tennessee's ban unconstitutional, but stated that, "At some point in the future, likely with the benefit of additional precedent from circuit courts and, perhaps, the Supreme Court, the court will be asked to make a final ruling on the plaintiffs’ claims. At this point, all signs indicate that, in the eyes of the United States Constitution, the plaintiffs’ marriages will be placed on an equal footing with those of heterosexual couples and that proscriptions against same-sex marriage will soon become a footnote in the annals of American history."

On February 22, 2016, in United States of America v. Matt DeHart, Trauger sentenced Matt DeHart — an American citizen and former U.S. Air National Guard intelligence analyst known for his involvement with the Anonymous hacker group and WikiLeaks, as well as claims to have received classified documents alleging serious misconduct by the CIA — to 72 months for the porn charges and an additional 18 months for fleeing the country. Journalist Sarah Harrison called the sentencing, “another shameful milestone in the U.S. government's war on digital activists.”

On March 23, 2017, Trauger issued a preliminary injunction in the case of Doe v. Hommrich, et al. prohibiting Rutherford County from subjecting children to solitary confinement while the case continued. That particular case has since settled for $250,000; however, Trauger had granted the class-action status sought by the ACLU of Tennessee in February 2017. The class encompasses all detainees who were then juveniles held in the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center from April 15, 2015 through February 17, 2017. The class-action settled for $11,000,000, but only twenty-three percent of those eligible to receive a portion could be contacted to file a claim, resulting in only $2.2 million being paid out.

On July 2, 2018, in the case Thomas v. Haslam, Trauger struck down a law that would allow Tennessee officials to revoke driver's licenses of defendants who could not pay their court costs, pointing out before issuing the ruling that the law created an incentive for people to drive on revoked licenses. In a ruling on a separate class-action lawsuit that sued for relief from Tennessee Annotated Code § 55-50-502(a)(1)(H), Robinson, et al. v. Purkey, issued on October 16, 2018, Trauger ruled that Tennessee could likewise not revoke drivers' licenses based on their inability to pay traffic fines.

On January 3, 2019, Trauger issued a ruling in the case of United States v. Matthew Charles wherein she ordered Charles' immediate release from prison due to Congressional enactment of the First Step Act. Charles had been mistakenly granted early in 2016 and ordered back to prison by the Sixth Circuit in 2018 after Donald Trump chose not to commute Charles' sentence despite his record as a model inmate. Charles was the first inmate freed under the act authored by Dick Durbin.

In the case League of Women Voters, et al. v. Hargett, et al., Trauger warned that a Tennessee law imposing restrictions on voter registration had "chilling effects" on individuals and organizations attempting to register new voters in Tennessee. On September 12, 2019, Trauger ruled that there was no basis that the law would provide more benefit than harm to Tennesseans. The law would have fined groups that pay workers should too many incomplete registration forms be submitted, and would have criminalized intentional infractions of a new set of rules with misdemeanor charges. Tre Hargett then wrote to the Tennessee legislature to encourage them to repeal the law in question, which was done with the repeal going into effect on April 2, 2020. The ACLU then dropped the suit with the plaintiffs requesting reimbursement for legal expenses from the State, which was awarded by the District Court. Tennessee appealed that decision; however, it was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 12, 2023.

On July 9, 2021, in the case Bongo Productions LLC, et al. v. Lawrence et al., Trauger issued a preliminary injunction blocking a Tennessee law that would require businesses and other entities that allow transgender people to use the public restroom that matches their preferred gender to post a government-prescribed warning sign. The lawsuit argued that the law violated the First Amendment rights of the businesses by forcing them to post notices that they disagreed with and found offensive. The injunction blocked enforcement of the law while the lawsuit was pending, on the grounds that implementation would cause immediate and irreparable harm. The plaintiffs were granted summary judgement on May 17, 2022, stating in part that the Act failed applicable constitutional standards.

On March 5, 2024, Trauger issued a ruling regarding Concord Music Group, Inc., et al. v. X Corp., d/b/a Twitter in which she found that the platform could not be held directly responsible for the infringements that its users engaged in, but that plaintiffs can present the argument that a lack of DMCA enforcement against serial infringers, despite being aware of the problem, makes X liable. The ruling also acknowledged that if plaintiffs prove the platform intentionally delayed or ignored valid DMCA takedown notices, X may be found liable for contributing to the piracy.

Honors Some of the honors Judge Trauger has received include: 2015 Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey Award 2016 honoree for the Academy for Women of Achievement 2016 Distinguished Service Award from Vanderbilt University Law School