Knoxville attorney and University of Tennessee (UT) College of Law Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus Douglas A. Blaze will be honored next month with the prestigious William M. Leech Jr. Public Service Award. Named for former Attorney General William M. Leech and presented by the Fellows of the TBA Young Lawyers Division, the award is given to a Tennessee lawyer who has been of outstanding service to the profession, legal system and the community. Blaze joined the UT Law faculty in 1993 as the director of clinical programs. He also served as director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution and interim associate dean for academic affairs. He was named dean of the law school twice and served from 2008-2015 and then again from 2020-2022. Blaze helped found the college’s Institute for Professional Leadership and served as its first director. He retired from full-time teaching in July 2022. The Leech Award will be presented at the TBA Annual Convention in Knoxville on June 16 during the Lawyers’ Luncheon. Read the TBA's full press release on the award.

U.S. Chief District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. has ruled that former Tennessee senator Brian Kelsey will not be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea for violating federal campaign finance laws, reported the Tennessean. Crenshaw criticized Kelsey's legal argument that he did not fully understand the implications of a criminal felony plea given Kelsey’s career as a constitutional lawyer and state lawmaker. Kelsey pleaded guilty in November 2022 and filed to withdraw his plea in March 2022. Sentencing is expected in July.

Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order Tuesday creating the Tennessee Nuclear Energy Advisory Council, reported WJHL News Channel 11. The announcement was held at the University of Tennessee Zeanah Engineering Complex. The council will consist of 15 members, including members of the Lee administration, the Tennessee General Assembly and Tennessee’s congressional delegation. The council will make recommendations on legislative policy related to nuclear energy facilities in Tennessee, storage and waste practices and potential partnerships with federal agencies.

John Crawford, the education manager for Tennessee's Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), was presented the 2022 Public Service Award at the Tennessee State Clerks of Court Education Conference in Nashville. Gary Behler, juvenile court clerk of Hamilton County and 2022 conference president gave Crawford the award “in recognition of an awesome job of dedicated service for the Court Clerk’s Education Conferences and outstanding assistance to the State Court Clerk’s Association of Tennessee for just being there to answer our questions.” Read more from the AOC.

The Tennessee Department of Health announced that Tennesseans will continue to have access to free COVID-19 vaccinations while supplies last even though the federal public health emergency officially ended Thursday. Vaccines will also be available through in-network insurance providers and Affordable Care Act plans. Private insurers and Medicare are now no longer required to provide free distribution of at-home COVID-19 tests. International travelers entering the United States are also no longer required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccinations to enter the country. Read more about the end of the federal requirement from the Tennessean.

Memphis City Council members are set to consider two ballot referendums tomorrow that would allow Memphians to vote on whether handguns without permits should be banned within city limits and whether the sale of assault rifles should be banned in the city, the Commercial Appeal reports. If approved by council members and then by voters, the ordinances would directly contradict state law. In 2021, Tennessee became a permitless carry state, allowing for both concealed and open carry of handguns without a permit. Tennessee law also states that local firearms ordinances will be preempted by state law.

The American Bar Association (ABA) is pausing a plan to allow law schools to go fully test-optional for admissions by 2025, Reuters reports. The council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar had planned to resubmit the proposal to the ABA House of Delegates for consideration at its August meeting after the House rejected the proposal in February. Now, the council has decided to remove the agenda item from the August meeting in response to concerns from hundreds of law school deans and stakeholders. The pause will allow the council “to evaluate the concerns and determine what is best for law schools and applicants,” a spokesperson said. Reuters reported earlier that deans from more than half the nation’s law schools were backing a compromise that would allow them to admit up to 25% of students without a standardized test score — up from the current 10% allowance.

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office has joined a motion filed by Memphis defense attorney Robert Hutton to prevent the Tennessee attorney general from handling a post-conviction case for his client. The motion challenges a new law, which removes power from local district attorneys to litigate death penalty post-convictions, often referred to as collateral reviews, when new evidence and competency questions are raised. The motion argues that the law is “unconstitutional” and violates voters’ rights, the Commercial Appeal reports. District Attorney Steve Mulroy tells the paper that he believes the law improperly infringes on “the inherent prosecutorial discretion of local elected district attorneys” and that it also violates the rules regarding the captions of bills. The bill in question originally dealt with rape-kit backlogs, but an amendment stripped that language and inserted the collateral review provision. The bill’s sponsor argued that the process needed streamlining and that under the law, the “attorney general will be able to move seamlessly up and down the trial court as necessary, and back into the appeals process” rather than turn cases temporarily over to local prosecutors.

Chattanooga lawyer Russell Fowler will receive the prestigious Justice Joseph W. Henry Award for Outstanding Legal Writing on June 16 during the Tennessee Bar Association’s (TBA) Annual Convention in Knoxville. The award, which will be presented at the Lawyers Luncheon, was established nearly 40 years ago and is given each year to the lawyer who writes the most outstanding article published in the Tennessee Bar Journal for the preceding year.  Fowler is being recognized for his article "Tennessee Lawyers Impact America: A History of Advancing the Right to Vote" and companion piece "Dunn v. Blumstein: A Young Tennessee Lawyer Wins Expansion of the Right to Vote, which ran in the March/April 2022 issue of the Journal. Fowler is director of litigation and advocacy at Legal Aid of East Tennessee. He has written many pieces on law and legal history, and is a regular columnist for the Journal. Read the full release.

A federal judge in Florida blocked the Biden administration’s plan to release some migrants into the U.S. on “parole,” shortly before Title 42 expired at midnight last night, The Hill reports. U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell granted Florida’s request for a temporary restraining order on the parole policy, finding that the policy is not substantially different from one he struck down in March. Under the parole program, migrants are released into the United States without a court date and asked to schedule an appointment with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within 60 days.