Attorneys for Shelby County District Attorney General candidate Joe Brown have asked for another delay in his case, saying there are errors on court documents. Brown was arrested in March after being charged with contempt of court. His hearing is scheduled for May 2, WREG reports.

Baker Donelson has opened an office in Tallahassee, marking the law firm's third new location in Florida in three years. With the addition of the Tallahassee office, Baker Donelson now has 20 offices in seven states across the Southeast, Texas and Washington, D.C., including seven in Tennessee. 

The Jackson Sun profiled Kyle Atkins and Edward Martindale, contenders for the 26th Judicial District’s Republican primary for Circuit Court Judge in Division III. The district is made up of Madison, Chester and Henderson counties. The winner of the primary will run against Circuit Court Judge Nathan Pride, who is on the August ballot as an independent.

The Supreme Court seemed wary Tuesday of allowing police unbridled freedom to search through cellphones of people they arrest, taking on a new issue of privacy in the face of rapidly changing technology, WATE reports. The court heard two cases today involving a drug dealer and a gang member whose convictions turned in part on evidence found on their cellphones. A key question is whether Americans' cellphones, with vast quantities of sensitive records, photographs and communications, are a private realm much like their homes. Decisions are expected by late June.

A new study suggests that about one in 25 people who are sentenced to death are likely innocent, the ABA Journal reports. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that while only 1.6 percent of those on death-row are exonerated and released, the actual figure is likely a minimum of 4.1 percent when statistical assumptions are applied to the cases of people who are removed from death row and given life sentences.The new study also refutes a statement made by Justice Antonin Scalia in a concurring opinion in 2007 in which he wrote that American criminal convictions have an error rate of 0.027 percent “or, to put it another way, a success rate of 99.973 percent.”

Attorneys for Rutherford County say that the U.S Supreme Court should reject hearing an appeal about the county’s method for notifying the public of plans for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, the Daily News Journal reports. The document is in response to the plaintiffs' request that the high court hear their case that started in September 2010 when they sought to stop construction of the mosque. In 2013, the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

The U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights office is investigating Vanderbilt's handling of sex crimes in response to a complaint filed by six current and former female students, the Tennessean reports. The students charge that women were discouraged from going forward with reports of sexual violence, university staff failed to follow through after incidents, education efforts were lacking and help for victims was not readily available. The opening of the Vanderbilt review comes as the Obama administration announces a series of steps it plans to take to try to reduce the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses. That effort includes pushing colleges and universities to become more transparent in their reporting of incidents.

Gov. Bill Haslam today signed legislation allowing women who use drugs while pregnant to be criminally charged for harm done to their infants, the Tennessean reports. “The intent of this bill is to give law enforcement and district attorneys a tool to address illicit drug use among pregnant women through treatment programs,” Haslam wrote in a statement. Tennessee officials have wrestled with what to do about the growing numbers of infants born dependent on drugs. The law brings back criminalization, which lawmakers had eliminated two years ago as the state moved toward programs that incentivize expecting mothers to get into treatment.

The marriages of three same-sex Tennessee couples who are suing the state have been invalidated, at least temporarily, by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. In March, U.S District Court Judge Aleta Trauger granted a temporary injunction, forcing the state to recognize the couples’ out-of-state marriages. On Friday, the 6th Circuit put the lower court’s order on hold because it says "the law in this area is so unsettled." The Memphis Daily News has the story.

The Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct on Friday issued a formal opinion affirming its March decision to issue a public censure of former Cocke County Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew for using religion as a basis for changing a baby’s name from Messiah to Martin. “We emphasize that Magistrate Ballew has every right to hold the very religious beliefs at issue in the case,” the opinion said. “However, the imposition of those beliefs by Magistrate Ballew on the litigants is the inappropriate conduct in this case.” Knoxnews has the story.