A Davidson County inmate has died after contracting the COVID-19 virus, the Tennessean reports. The 64-year-old woman, who has yet to be identified, had been hospitalized at Nashville General Hospital since Aug. 18. The woman was arrested on July 7 for failure to appear on a fourth-offense driving under the influence charge and was being held on $500,000 bond. Spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office Karla West said today that two of the jail’s 1,197 residents had tested positive for COVID-19 and 324 had recovered.

Nine hundred seventy four inmates have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus at South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, a private prison managed by CoreCivic, the Tennessean reports. The Tennessee Department of Correction said the cases were uncovered after a second round of mass testing. Of the 1,410 inmates tested for the virus, 168 results are still pending. Both staff members and inmates were showing symptoms of the virus, but it was unclear how many staff members from the facility had tested positive. This is the largest outbreak reported at a state prison in months, following Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville and Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in Pikeville, both of which were among the country's largest coronavirus clusters with hundreds of active cases inside the prisons.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee sought to downplay two conservative groups' lawsuit challenging his legal authority to delegate executive powers to county mayors to combat the coronavirus this week, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. "We worked really hard to make sure our decision-making process falls within the authority that's given to the governor constitutionally and our statute," Lee said. The governor has given mayors in all Tennessee counties leeway to implement restrictions such as mask-wearing mandates to battle spread of the virus.

Rep. Bill Beck, D-Nashville, today announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and believes he caught the virus during the three-day special session earlier this month, the Tennessean reports. Beck began experiencing symptoms on Monday and tested positive on Tuesday — 11 days after the conclusion of the special session. In a statement Beck wrote that, while he wore a mask during the special session, not all legislators did. He criticized legislative leadership for holding the session, referring to it as “unnecessary and highly risky.” Beck’s statement comes one day after Rep. Mike Carter, R-Ooltewah, was released from the hospital after spending more than a week in intensive care with the virus.

Effective today, Memphis municipal courts have suspended all in-person cases after the high volume of people entering the Walter Bailey Criminal Justice Center caused concern about spreading the COVID-19 virus, the Daily Memphian reports. Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich recently said that between July 6 and  24, more than 18,000 non-employees entered the building. Anyone scheduled to appear in municipal court divisions 1, 2 or 3 should call the court clerk’s office at 901-636-3400, 901-636-3450 or 901-636-3499 for information on reset dates.

More than one third of the prisoners housed at CoreCivic’s Metro Detention Facility in Nashville tested positive for the COVID-19 virus in recent weeks, but a reporting loophole has kept those numbers out of the public eye, WPLN reports. All 170 prisoners who tested positive for the virus have now recovered, but those cases were never reported by the Tennessee Department of Correction. A CoreCivic spokesperson said the private facility sends daily reports to its contract monitor at the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, works closely with the Metro Public Health Department and reports COVID testing and case numbers to the Tennessee Corrections Institute, a state agency that oversees local correctional facilities. But, since the facility is not technically part of the state prison system or the sheriff’s office, it hasn’t been included in either agency’s reports to the public. TDOC says one other prison in Shelby County operates under a similar arrangement. CoreCivic facilities have accounted for nearly half of the system’s 3,300 COVID-19 cases and five of its nine deaths. The sheriff’s office is set to take over the Nashville prison in October after the company announced last month it is ending its contract with Metro after nearly three decades.

Tennessee’s election officials have yet to properly inform voters that people in high-risk groups for COVID-19 and their caretakers can request an absentee mail-in ballot this year, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled yesterday. She has given the state until noon on Monday to revise the form, Nashville Public Radio reports. According to Lyle’s ruling, the state must mention COVID-19 by name, and make it clear that anyone with an underlying health condition making them more susceptible to contracting the virus or those who take care of such people now have a reason to vote absentee. The ruling also directs the state to instruct county-level election officials to do the same. Finally, Chancellor Lyle noted that the state website continues to present “confusing and misleading content” but stopped short of issuing any web-related mandates, saying her authority does not extend beyond the absentee ballot application form.

The group Citizens for Limited Government and Constitutional Integrity, also known as Tennessee Stands, and two individuals are suing Tennessee and Gov. Bill Lee over his decision to let counties issue certain orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reports. Lee is named as the defendant in the suit which claims a state law dealing with the governor’s powers during an emergency violates sections of the Tennessee Constitution, including provisions about the separation of powers. The suit specifically targets an executive order Lee issued last month allowing 89 of the state’s 95 counties to decide whether or not to require face coverings in public. The remaining six counties already had that authority under a previous order from Lee. Lee has called the mask option for local governments a “targeted approach” that “ensures we protect both lives and livelihoods and safely keep our economy open in Tennessee.”

After first saying the state would not release information about COVID-19 cases in schools, then saying it would, and then two days ago saying it does not have authority to release that data, Gov. Bill Lee now says he wants to make the information public and is seeking permission from the federal government to do so. Lee said his administration recognizes transparency is important but that federal law restricts the release of certain information to protect students’ privacy. Yesterday, his team reached out to the U.S. Department of Education to see what exactly can be released, the Daily Memphian reports.

An attorney for the state says authorities will not pursue perjury charges against voters who request a mail-in ballot based on inaccurate information, WJHL reports. Deputy Attorney General Janet Kleinfelter made that commitment yesterday during questioning by Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle. Following a recent state Supreme Court ruling, those who have a health condition that increases their risk for COVID-19 and those who care for a high-risk individual may request a mail-in ballot. The hearing was held to determine if the state is providing required instructions for people with underlying health conditions. Plaintiffs argue the form used to request a mail-in ballot does not include the required language. The state argues the information is on its website.