Felonies and criminal charges from past Knox County trustees are preventing interim trustee Kristin Phillips from obtaining the bonding she needs to fully operate, Knoxnews reports. The Hartford, the bonding company for the Knox County Trustee’s Office, notified the county that it wouldn’t bond Kristin Phillips, the county’s acting trustee, until the county provided more information on the position. The lack of the $18.5 million bond for the seat keeps the trustee from investing the county’s tax money and similar jobs. The bond, required for the officeholder, is intended to protect the public from failure to perform duty or malfeasance.

Shelton B. Hillman Jr., the longtime Bristol municipal court judge, died yesterday (July 18). He was 69 years old. He started practicing law in 1973 and maintained a law office for many years. He served as the municipal court judge for more than 30 years, processing traffic tickets on the Tennessee side of town, hearing animal control and other small cases. “He was a people’s judge,” City Attorney Jack Hyder said. “He wanted people who came into his court to feel like they were treated fairly and with respect.” Funeral arrangements had not been set Thursday evening, but are being handled by Oakley-Cook Funeral Home.

Across-the-board budget cuts brought on by the sequester have meant hiring freezes, unfilled positions, training and travel expenses cut for what many call an already overworked portion of federal government, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. “I’ve worked in all three branches of government and the private sector,” said U.S. District Judge Harry S. “Sandy” Mattice. “I have never been involved in any organization either public or private in which the workload has so far exceeded the resources that are allotted to do that job.” Without relief from budget cuts and further reductions anticipated next fiscal year, Mattice said there is a “real question” as to whether the courts will be able to continue to protect 6th Amendment rights to legal representation.

The Circuit Court for Rutherford and Cannon counties has launched a new website. According to a press release, the new website is part of the ongoing effort to make the court more open and accessible to the public. “We want to remove the cloud of mystery from court proceedings,” Judge M. Keith Siskin said. The new website allows members of the public to download court-approved forms, and to research statutes and rules applicable to their cases.

Drew McElroy, an attorney for Georgia-based Atlantic Coast Carriers, said he is advising his clients and others not to join the settlement with Pilot Flying J that was approved earlier this week by U.S. District Judge James M. Moody in Little Rock, The Tennessean reports. McElroy said the eight firms that have accepted the offer will be getting little more than what had already been promised by Pilot CEO Jimmy Haslam.

A GOP controlled House panel moved yesterday to eliminate funding for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) — a Clinton-era program that helps local governments hire police officers. Driven by deepening automatic spending cuts, the program, slated to get $440 million in President Barack Obama's budget, would instead get "zeroed out" in a spending bill to fund the Justice Department for the upcoming 2014 budget year, WRCB reports.

The House Republican sponsor of the Voting Rights Act updates said Wednesday that Congress must pass a new anti-discrimination law before the 2014 elections that restores the federal supervision the Supreme Court struck down in June. "The Supreme Court said it's an obligation of Congress to do this. That's a command of a separate but co-equal branch of government to do that," Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, told reporters Wednesday after urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to get moving on the issue. WRCB has the story.

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday pressed forward with a reporter shield bill that includes new Justice Department guidelines for investigations that involve the media, the Memphis Daily News reports. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the new Justice Department guidelines on Friday, which would make it harder for prosecutors to obtain journalists' phone records without advance notice. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, and Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-South Carolina, said they hoped to have the legislation to a Senate committee as early as this week.

Judge Karen Caldwell of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee affirmed a bankruptcy court’s denial of Robert Bentley Marlow’s attempt to discharge $250,000 in student loan debt. Marlow graduated from the Samford University Cumberland School of Law in 2009 and has not held steady employment since finishing school, according to the opinion. He has worked sporadically as a landscaper, construction worker and collector of aluminum cans and scrap medal in addition to receiving financial assistance from family members. Judge Caldwell found that Marlow had not established that repaying his loans would represent an undue hardship. Rather than intensely looking for a job, Marlow spent the bulk of his time filing pro se lawsuits against the Tennessee bar examiners and other government entities, she noted. The National Law Journal also noted a similar case in Michigan to highlight that student loan debt typically can’t be discharged in bankruptcy like other form of debt.

Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC is expanding its downtown Memphis office, the Memphis Business Journal reports. In addition to renewing its lease at the 415, 658-square-foot First Tennessee building at 165 Madison Ave, the firm is renovating and finishing out the 16th and 17th floors and increasing its office footprint from 92,189 square feet to 107,027 square feet.