Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday launched the new School Safety Toolkit for Tennessee Families, a practical resource to help parents prepare and engage in their child’s school safety plan. This follows Executive Order 97, which directed state agencies to equip and engage parents, increase transparency and collaborate with local law enforcement and school districts. “As we continue our work to protect Tennessee children, the new School Safety Toolkit will provide parents with helpful resources and greater transparency to feel confident their child is safe at school,” said Gov. Lee. “I encourage every Tennessee family to prepare and engage in school safety by utilizing this Toolkit and downloading the SafeTN app.” Read more about the toolkit here.

Montgomery County Commissioner Lisa Prichard says the commission will be asking the state for help in bringing a Regional Juvenile Resource and Justice Center to the Clarksville area. Montgomery County has sent juveniles to counties as far as Bedford, Williamson and Putnam, which makes it harder for families to travel to see their children. Prichard has inside knowledge on the issue as she was a deputy for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and took in troubled youth over the years. "We've been farming our children out to various counties for various reasons because we have no place to put them," said Prichard. She is part of a new ad hoc committee to address the issue.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission today held its first public meeting in nearly four years after the Senate in August confirmed seven new members, reinvigorating a panel unable to adopt new policies since losing a quorum in early 2019. The agenda included a vote to finalize the commission's priorities for 2022-2023, which include implementing the First Step Act. That bipartisan legislation is aimed at easing harsh sentencing for nonviolent offenders and at reducing recidivism. Watch the meeting here.

Butler Snow LLP announces that former Tennessee Chancellor Gadson William "Will" Perry has rejoined the firm in its Memphis office and will practice with the Commercial Litigation and Appellate practice groups. Perry will also focus his practice on alternative dispute resolution. Perry previously served on the 30th Judicial District Chancery Court, which covers Memphis and Shelby County, after being appointed by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to finish the term of a retired chancellor. He became, at 38, the youngest African-American judge and second youngest judge in Tennessee's largest county. Perry presided over a civil docket of more than 2,000 business, governmental, tax, divorce and child custody cases, reviewed civil service and state agency appeals and mediated commercial cases referred by other judges.

Sumner County Commissioners voted 20-4 to include language affirming "Judeo-Christian values" in their Standing Rules and Procedures, a document that governs how they conduct their meetings. NewsChannel5 reports that "among the changes, the commission added a preamble, saying the commission is adopting the rules 'to ensure that [the county government] is ... most importantly, reflective of the Judeo-Christian values inherent in our nation's founding,' among other reasons." Interim Law Director Ben Allen warned the group that they could be setting the county up for discrimination lawsuits. Nashville attorney David Raybin says that the inclusion of the language is a clear violation of the First Amendment's ban against the government endorsing religion.

The Times News reports that the Tennessee State Building Commission has approved a plan to lease the now-closed Northeast Correctional Complex annex in Carter County to a group developing the Northeast Tennessee Regional Recovery Center. The facility will have 45 beds ready to begin treating state inmates for addiction by March. First Judicial District Criminal Court Judges Stacy Street and Lisa Nidiffer Rice have raised more than $10.4 million for the facility, which will serve a nine-county region stretching from Mountain City to Morristown, and its operations will be managed by judges from the first, second and third judicial districts. The judges say the inpatient program is modeled on their current drug-free Recovery Court structure and will rely on Families Free to provide intensive counseling and treatment services.

St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio has welcomed 27 students to its inaugural fully online Juris Doctor program, the first to be accredited by the American Bar Association. The law school also offers a traditional J.D. program and had 791 applicants for its first all-remote cohort. The online program offered admission to 71 applicants, a 9% acceptance rate that falls close to top-ranked Yale Law School. Dean Patricia Roberts said that the program’s large applicant pool “showed us that there is an interest and a need for this.” The ABA in May 2021 granted St. Mary’s permission to offer its fully online degree as a five-year pilot program. That approval came after law schools were quickly forced to switch to remote classes by the COVID-19 pandemic, giving them more experience with distance education.

WREG reports that Pamela Moses, who was convicted of voter fraud in January of this year, is suing the state of Tennessee, current Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy and former Memphis District Attorney Amy Weirich, citing emotional damages. After Moses’ sentencing in February, a judge later granted her a new trial, stating that information about a previous conviction should not have been considered by the jury, and that a document from probation officials was not disclosed at trial. Weirich later dismissed the charges. Moses is asking for compensatory and punitive damages against the defendants.

Metro Nashville Police Department investigators working with the district attorney’s office were attempting to serve two arrest warrants for Zachary Johnson on Thursday afternoon. They claim Johnson was threatening and stalking Nashville attorneys Bernard McEvoy and Emily Todoran, who had represented him in the past. Johnson, however, refused to come out of his home, which led to an hours-long standoff, shots fired and a house fire.

The Tennessee Commission on Youth and Children (TCYY) says that almost 90% of kids who move homes five or more times while in the foster care system will end up in the criminal justice system. “In the foster care system, a huge risk factor is multiple moves,” said Kylie Graves, communications and policy specialist for the TCCY. “Thirty three percent of our kids who are in foster care are going to move three or four times within their first year. Nationally, that number is 14%.” Reports show Tennessee has the highest rate of foster care instability in the nation. Read more about the root causes of violent juvenile crime in Tennessee from WKRN.