Opinions issued by Tennessee state courts late Wednesday and yesterday were not included in Thursday's TBA Today newsletter due to a technical error. The four opinions — In Re Ethan W. Et Al, Darryl Robinson v. State of Tennessee, State of Tennessee v. Shannon Leigh Smith and Newmon Winton v. State of Tennessee — are included today.

Memphis Bar Association President Jennifer Sink released a statement today responding to the death of Tyre Nichols and the arrest of five Memphis police officers. She applauds the upcoming public release of body camera footage of the incident but says while the video will show what happened, it will not explain why it happened. “There will likely never be a satisfactory explanation for why,” she writes. “These officers did not act in a way consistent with their training ... But more importantly, their actions defied our expectations for basic human decency.” She concludes by saying she intends to facilitate an open dialogue this year about the “many serious issues implicated by this tragic event.”

The TBA YLD is committed to providing members with practical resources that increase their membership value and is excited to announce a new member benefit. The "Welcome to Tennessee Basket" offers a range of standard forms, helpful links, suggested reading and practice guides. Be sure to be logged into your TBA account to check it out. If you have a form that you use on a regular basis and you think other young lawyers would benefit from, please upload it to this link. Though you do not have to have personally created the form, if you did not, then it needs to be publicly available or you should have permission to share it. Forms could be those you frequently access online or one provided by the AOC for your practice area. The TBY YLD Board will go through all forms to review and edit for quality and formatting. If you have another resource you would recommend please send that to YLD Coordinator Laura Labenberg.

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office recently filed a response brief in Tennessee v. Department of Education at the Sixth Circuit. This brief defends the preliminary injunction issued by the Eastern District of Tennessee in July 2022 regarding guidance documents from the U.S. Department of Education. The multistate coalition, led by Tennessee, states in the brief, “the interlocutory appeal presents important issues of constitutional law and statutory interpretation and implicates billions of dollars of federal funding for Plaintiff States.” Read more from the AG’s office.

Five Memphis police officers have been indicted on seven charges, including second-degree murder, in the death of Tyre Nichols, the Daily Memphian reports. Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith now face charges for what Nichols’ family attorney Ben Crump called a “needless and unnecessary death.” The five officers were believed to be working as part of MPD’s SCORPION unit when they stopped Nichols for alleged reckless driving earlier this month. Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy said each “played a different role in the incident,” but the “actions of all of them resulted in the death” of Nichols. Mulroy said video of the incident will be released tomorrow after 6 p.m. CST. In addition to second-degree murder, all five men are charged with acting in concert of aggravated assault, two aggravated kidnapping charges, two official misconduct charges and official oppression.

New York-based startup DoNotPay, a legal chatbot created to contest parking tickets, has dropped plans to premiere its “robot lawyer” in court next month, NPR reports. CEO Joshua Browder had intended to use his AI system to help a defendant fight a parking ticket in court on Feb. 22. To do so, the defendant would wear smart glasses that both record court proceedings and dictate responses into the defendant's ear from a small speaker. The system relies heavily on AI text generator, ChatGPT, which recently made headlines for its performance on law school exams. Browder said he nixed plans for the courtroom debut after receiving a multitude of angry letters from bar associations in various states threatening legal action for possible unauthorized practice of law. "I think calling the tool a 'robot lawyer' really riled a lot of lawyers up," Browder said. "But I think they're missing the forest for the trees. Technology is advancing and courtroom rules are very outdated."

A new class action lawsuit claims that mini bottles of the Fireball brand whisky, found in gas stations and grocery stores, do not actually contain whisky, the Tennessean reports. Instead, they contain whisky flavors, but labeling makes that unclear, according to the lawsuit. Fireball sells two types of beverages — Fireball Cinnamon, at 16.5% alcohol by volume, and Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, at 33%. The former being a malt beverage, legal to sell in Tennessee gas stations. "Malt Beverage With Natural Whisky & Other Flavors and Caramel Color" is written in small print on the bottom of the mini bottles. But the lawsuit contends that the marketing of the product is negligent misrepresentation and fraud.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined 24 state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in U.S. Supreme Court in support of a federal criminal prohibition on encouraging or inducing illegal immigration into the U.S. The brief asks the high court to overturn a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that strikes down a federal law making it illegal for a person to encourage or induce non-citizens to unlawfully enter or reside in the country. The Ninth Circuit relied on the “overbreadth doctrine” to strike down the federal law. The doctrine allows a federal court to strike down a statute if it would violate the First Amendment in a substantial number of other cases. Read more from the AG’s office.

TBA's BarBuzz podcast is all new in the new year! Tune in for the first episode of 2023 with Asia Diggs Meador, who is Meritan's general counsel and senior vice president of compliance & human resources. Diggs Meador helps deliver bar association news and important updates from the Tennessee legal community. Listen online or wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to check out the entire selection of shows on the TBA Podcast Network. 

Kevin G. Ritz, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, issued a statement today urging those concerned about the deadly police attack on Tyre Nichols to express their views but to do so “in a peaceful and non-violent way.” Responding to calls to release the body cam video of Tyre’s interaction with the Memphis police, Ritz said that state and local authorities will determine when the video is released to the public. He warned that the federal investigation "may take some time” but assured residents his office is working diligently. In a separate interview with the Associated Press, Ritz said that investigators want to complete as many interviews as possible before releasing the video, but could do so later this week or next week. That timetable rankled activists who expected the video to be released after Nichols' family viewed it Monday.