A report from the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission shows an increase in violent crimes during the first half of the year, with the COVID-19 pandemic possibly impacting those numbers, the Daily Memphian reports. Major violent crimes, including homicides and aggravated assaults, increased in Memphis 9.7% from January to June. In Shelby County, major violent crimes were also up 9.1% for the first half of the year. The TBI’s major violent crime numbers showed a downward trend during the first quarter of the year, but with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, homicides and aggravated assaults increased. Through June, there was a drop in robberies — 9.5% in Memphis and 10.3% countywide — and burglaries were also down 23.6% in Memphis and 22.2% countywide. The Commission says more people staying at home due to the pandemic is likely a “deterrent to would-be burglars.” Read the Crime Commission’s full report here.  

The Tennessee-based immigrant rights collaboration Welcome South has been awarded a 2020 Opportunity Grant by the American Bar Endowment. Tennessee’s Advocates for Immigrant Rights partnered with the Community Legal Center and the Mid-South Immigrant Advocates to form Welcome South, a group working together to address systemic and policy issues facing the immigrant population in the South. Advocates for Immigrant Rights’ Executive Director Casey Bryant said of the award, “we are so grateful to receive this important grant from the American Bar Endowment. It will allow the Welcome South partnership to create an online platform to facilitate cross-network referrals between social service agencies and the legal programs serving clients in the four states.”

While many Tennessee counties have worked to reduce jail populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, at least a quarter of the state's facilities were operating at 75% or more capacity at the end of April, with nine of those meeting or exceeding their full capacities, a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee says. The report highlights changes in jail populations and pretrial populations from December 2019 through April 2020, WZTV reports. The ACLU report also provides recommendations for further reducing jail populations to reduce the spread of COVID-19, including the release of medically vulnerable people, reduction in arrests for minor offenses and courts ordering pretrial release without conditions in all cases where release poses no risk to safety. Read the full report here.

Members of the 15th Judicial Bar Association recently indicated they would prefer attorney Branden Bellar as the new circuit court judge. Bar members were asked to consider each candidate's overall experience, with Bellar garnering 94.7% of the vote and General Sessions Court Judge Michael Collins collecting 5.3%. Bellar is a partner with Bellar & Bellar in Carthage. The 15th Judicial District is comprised of Wilson, Macon, Trousdale, Smith and Jackson counties. The full results of the survey can be found here.

The Summer CLE Blast is going virtual! Now that all CLE can be taken online for 2020, the TBA is offering a complete CLE package that combines 15 hours of dual (ethics) CLE. Topics include Ethics, Wellness and Law Practice Management. Get all of your CLE for the year in 1-Click with great programming!

Vanderbilt Law alumnus and longtime NFL executive Adolpho Birch III has been tapped to lead a new Vanderbilt Board of Trust ad hoc committee that will evaluate and recommend policies around equity, diversity and inclusion. Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Board of Trust Chair Bruce R. Evans will serve as ex-officio members of the committee and additional members will be announced soon. Birch spent more than 23 years working for the National Football League in various positions, most recently as senior vice president of labor policy and league affairs. In June, he was named senior vice president of business affairs and chief legal officer for the Tennessee Titans. In addition to his Vanderbilt Law degree, Birch graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1988. He is the son of A.A. Birch Jr., the first African American chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court. In a statement, Birch credited the “many positive strides” Vanderbilt has made toward diversity in recent years, but added that it’s “imperative that we do more — both within our university and throughout society — to advance racial justice.” Read the full story on Vanderbilt's website. 

In Antonio Howard v State, a unanimous opinion released today, the Tennessee Supreme Court determined that when analyzing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, trial counsel’s failure to file a timely motion for new trial does not require a presumption of prejudice. Today’s decision overruled the court’s previous holding in Wallace v. State that, when a defendant indicates a desire to appeal, trial counsel’s failure to file a timely motion for new trial is presumptively prejudicial. It explained that, while a presumption of prejudice is appropriate for claims involving the complete denial of an appeal, the petitioner in this case—as well as the petitioner in Wallace—received meaningful review on direct appeal and complained of waiver of only certain issues. The court concluded that, because the petitioner was not completely denied a direct appeal, the post-conviction court appropriately required him to demonstrate actual prejudice. Further, the court found no error in the post-conviction court’s conclusion that Howard was not prejudiced by trial counsel’s deficiency. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and reinstated the judgment of the post-conviction court denying post-conviction relief.

Federal inmate Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death this morning after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an injunction by a D.C. judge, the ABA Journal reports. Purkey was originally scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, but U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, for the second time this week, issued a preliminary injunction to delay an execution, citing Purkey’s mental state. In a 5-4 vote this morning, SCOTUS allowed the execution to proceed and Purkey was put to death shortly thereafter. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan dissented, with Sotomayor writing that Purkey has Alzheimer’s disease and does not believe he’s being executed for murder. Breyer, also for the second time this week, called for reexamining the constitutionality of the death penalty. Purkey was sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 16-year-old in 1998. Daniel Lewis Lee was the first federal inmate to be executed this week since 2003. 

The U.S. Supreme Court released a statement today with news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being treated for a possible infection and will spend several days in the hospital following a medical procedure, the Associated Press reports. The high court said Ginsburg went to a hospital in Washington on Monday evening after experiencing fever and chills. This afternoon, she underwent a procedure at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August when she was treated for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas. The statement said the justice “is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment.”

Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle on Tuesday denied an attempt by the American Civil Liberties Union and Memphis law firm Apperson Crump to hold the state in contempt for making first-time voters cast ballots in person, the Daily Memphian reports. The ACLU and Memphis attorneys argued the state was violating an order from Lyle to expand absentee voting by continuing to require first-time voters who registered by mail or online to vote in person the first time they vote. Lyle ruled that the groups had not explicitly asked her to block that law, but will allow them to request to amend her ruling. The first-time voter requirement is also being challenged in federal court, but time is running out to make a change before the July 30 deadline to request an absentee ballot for the Aug. 6 primary election.