Effective July 1 several amendments to procedure rules became law.  Let’s take a gander at two.

Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 26.02(4)
You want to know information about your opponent’s trial experts, not only before trial, but before you take discovery depositions.  By simply serving interrogatories you have been able to obtain their identity, the
subject matter of their testimony, and their opinions and the grounds for opinions. Now an interrogatory will unearth more information:

England had Mary Ann Cotton (1832-1873), whose arsenic victims included three husbands plus step-children and her own children. She was tried and hanged.

New England had Amy Archer (1873?-1962), who dispatched with arsenic “inmates” and a couple of husbands at her rooming house (made infamous in “Arsenic and Old Lace”). After a trial and reversal and guilty plea she was sent to an asylum.

And Tennessee had Katie Browder Stricklin (1938-1995). Who was she, what did she do, and what happened to her?

By Lewis L. Laska | McFarland & Company Inc. | $95 | 484 pages | 2011

This is a reference book that will last through the ages. It is the only complete compilation of the death penalty in Tennessee. From 1782 through 2009 a total of 524 men and women were hanged, electrocuted or lethally injected for capital crimes.

Counterclaims are governed by Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 13. Let’s look first at permissive counterclaims under Rule 13.02, because these cause no problems. Essentially the defendant is permitted to include in an answer claims against the plaintiff that do not arise out of a transaction or occurrence in the plaintiff’s complaint.

Marvin Joseph (“Joe”) Hill (age 47) was a pizza delivery driver in Knoxville. He also delivered marijuana to young folks in the Fort Sanders neighborhood behind U.T. Law College. One of the smokers was Christina Jeanette Eubanks (age 28), who lived in an apartment in the basement of a converted dwelling at the corner of Laurel Avenue and Fourteenth Street. She worked as a housekeeper in the nearby Cumberland House hotel.

In Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, Jan. 15, 1947, a female body was found in a vacant lot on Norton Avenue. The corpse was completely severed at the stomach. She was Elizabeth Short (age 22), known as the Black Dahlia. America’s coldest cold case has never been solved.* But the first suspect was cleared by a lie detector.

Robert “Red” Manley, a married man, had carried on an affair with Elizabeth in San Diego. At her request he drove her to the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on Jan. 9, 1947, around 6:30 p.m. That’s when and where she was last seen alive in public.

Test yourself on the issue of whether jurors can impeach their verdicts by affidavits exhibited to motions for new trial.

Ms. James was driving her employer’s vehicle in Chattanooga when hit head on by Ms. Swindell’s vehicle. The verdict was rather low for the injuries suffered. A juror swore posttrial that he assumed Ms. James recovered workers’ compensation and that he was unaware of subrogation law. See James v. Swindell (Tenn. Ct. App., E.S., Goddard, Aug. 23, 2000), no appl. perm. app.

What is a writ of error coram nobis? Justice Drowota detailed the history in State v. Mixon, 983 S.W.2d 66 (Tenn. 1999). Originally used in English and early American common law for civil as well as criminal cases, today the writ is confined to the criminal arena. See Civil Rule 60.02, rendering Tenn. Code Ann. §27-7-101 obsolete.

The statute we now need to study is Tenn. Code Ann. §40-26-105. Subsection (b) provides:

Bobby Hoppe was a football star at Chattanooga Central High and Auburn University. He played halfback on offense and defense with Auburn's 1957 national championship team.

On a July 1957 night he shot Don Hudson at Bell Avenue in Chattanooga. Three decades later, in June 1988, he was tried for first degree murder. I'll let you read this book by his widow to learn the outcome.

Luther Martin:

Were you ever drunk in court? Did you ever see a lawyer who was? I have long been a consumer of beer, both my homebrew and commercial brew. But I select venues far from courtrooms. Let's look at the life of a lawyer who excelled when fueled by alcohol.

Luther Martin (1748-1826) spent most of his life in Maryland. He served as attorney-general of that state in addition to conducting a busy and lucrative private practice. Contemporaries rated him the best in their profession.