According to Gov. Bill Lee, federal officials are planning to send “multiple busloads” of ICE detainees from New Orleans to Tennessee, the Tennessean reports. In a release, Lee says he was informed yesterday of the plan to transport “single adult detainees from ICE facilities” to the state as early as this week. He and other state officials, including Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, denounced the plan today and called on the Biden Administration for its reversal. “The Attorney General’s Office joins Governor Lee and our federal delegation in demanding the administration abandon their plan to release detainees into our state,” Skrmetti said in a statement. 

Federal prosecutors have brought new charges against two Tennessee men, one of whom has already been charged in the Jan. 6 attach on the U.S. Capitol, WPLN reports. Edward Kelley of Maryville and Austin Carter of Knoxville face new charges that include conspiracy, retaliation against a federal official, and solicitation to commit violence. According to recently unsealed court documents, the men were recorded on phone calls discussing a list of 37 federal agents to target and how many guns they would have to attack the FBI field office in Knoxville. Kelley was previously charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection and had his home searched by the FBI. Records say at least one agent present during the search was later identified as a target. The men are due back in court in January.

The TBA today announced the selection of 33 attorneys from across the state for its 2023 Leadership Law (TBALL) program. Now in its 20th year, Leadership Law is designed to equip Tennessee lawyers with the vision, knowledge and skills necessary to serve as leaders in their profession and local communities. The class will meet for its first session in January at Montgomery Bell State Park and spend the next six months learning about leadership in the legal profession, issues in the courts, policymaking in state government and the importance of community service. Read more on the 2023 class.  

A Tennessee judge on Friday promised to rule quickly on a request for public access to records that detail the treatment of a death row prisoner who injured himself while on suicide watch last fall. In a lawsuit filed in Davidson County Chancery Court, inmate Henry Hodges accused the state of providing inadequate medical and mental health care and of cruel and unusual punishment once he returned to the prison from the hospital. The state has asked for a court order that would protect broad categories of documents from public disclosure, including all video recordings of Hodges’ treatment while in prison. The Associated Press and the Nashville Banner are asking for those records to be opened. Former TBA Communication Section Chair Paul McAdoo, an attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, is representing the AP.

The Memphis Bar Association (MBA) held its Annual Meeting last week at the Memphis Botanic Garden. During the meeting, outgoing president Tannera Gibson passed the gavel to incoming president Jennifer Sink, chief legal officer for the city of Memphis. Adam Johnson took over as vice president while Lauran Stimac took office as secretary and treasurer. In addition, the evening featured the presentation of three awards. Terrence Reed received the Judge Jerome Turner Lawyer’s Lawyer Award. Amber Floyd received the Sam A. Myar Jr. Memorial Award and the W.J. Michael Cody Access to Justice Award. Read more about the recipients in releases from the MBA.

Law school data about fall 2022 admissions and other matters from American Bar Association-approved law schools is now available from the ABA. The data shows that total law school enrollment for 2022 was down 0.66% from the previous year, while first-year enrollment decreased by 4,698 students or 10.98%. The release also includes information about admissions, tuition, living costs, financial aid, class and faculty demographics, employment outcomes and bar passage rates. The data can be searched and sorted, allowing for school-by-school comparisons and analysis.

President Joe Biden was blocked from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for government-contractor workers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Indiana after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that he overstepped his authority. The government had sought to vacate a lower court’s order blocking the mandate but the judge authoring the majority opinion said, “To allow this mandate to remain in place would be to ratify an ‘enormous and transformative expansion in’ the President’s power under the Procurement Act.” A similar case that would impact workers in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee is still pending before the Sixth Circuit. Bloomberg Law has more on the pending litigation.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced last Friday that the independent review into the state’s lethal injection procedure has been completed, but the findings will not be immediately released. According to the Associated Press, Lee promised that the review will be released before the end of the year. “I think it’s important that I get a chance to read the report and that we internalize it and absorb the information,” Lee said. Executions in Tennessee have been paused since May after reports surfaced that the state had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs were properly tested.Lee appointed Memphis lawyer and former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to review circumstances that led to the failure. Stanton was tasked with reviewing the clarity of the state’s lethal injection manual and looking at the Tennessee Department of Correction’s staffing.

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Henry C. Leventis as the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, Knox News reports. Leventis, until now a partner at the Nashville law firm Spencer Fane, served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the district from 2010-2015. He previously worked as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. President Joe Biden's pick for the western district of Tennessee, Kevin G. Ritz, was confirmed on Sept. 22. Current Assistant U.S. Attorney Casey T. Arrowood has been tapped for the eastern district but has not yet been confirmed.

Memphis attorney Andre Mathis was sworn in to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals this week. He is replacing Judge Bernice Bouie Donald, who is retiring and joining national mediation firm Resolute Systems. Donald conducted the ceremony. Mathis, a partner at Butler Snow, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September. He will be the first Black male and second Black person from Tennessee to sit on the Ohio-based 6th Circuit.