Murfreesboro Municipal Judge Ewing Sellers was recently awarded the 2020 Sharon G. Lee Award of Excellence by the Tennessee Municipal Judges Conference. The award is presented each year to a municipal judge who has made a significant contribution to the conference, and is named in honor of Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Sharon G. Lee, who served as a municipal judge in her hometown of Madisonville from 2002 to 2004. Judge Sellers is one of the founding members of the Tennessee Municipal Judges Association, the predecessor of the current Tennessee Municipal Judges Conference, and has been an officer or committee chair of the conference since its inception, the Administrative Office of the Courts reports.

Judge Lloyd Raymond Grimes, a general sessions and juvenile court judge in Montgomery County, died Thursday after being hospitalized with the COVID-19 virus for several days. He was 73. Grimes earned his law degree from the University of Memphis School of Law in 1980, and practiced in Clarksville before becoming a judge in 1998. He also served as a judge for the Montgomery County Drug Court beginning with its inception in 2005. Grimes served as president of the Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in 2010, and received the McCain-Abernathy Memorial Award from the council in 2011. He also served as a Montgomery County Commissioner for several years. A celebration of life will be held tomorrow at 3 p.m. CST at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Montgomery County Recovery Court, 2 Millennium Plaza, Clarksville, TN 37040.

Clarksville lawyer John Minor Richardson, 98, died Friday at his residence. Richardson earned his law degree from the Vanderbilt University Law School in 1950. He was a U.S. Army veteran, practiced law in Clarksville, and served two terms in the Tennessee State Legislature. He also was a TBA Senior Counselor. A private family service will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. CST at the Neal-Tarpley-Parchman Funeral Home. A live stream of the service will be available at www.nealtarpleyparchman.com. Burial will follow at Greenwood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Clarksville Christian School, 505 Highway 76, Clarksville, TN 37043.

Cyber Monday CLE deals are here and will continue all week! Earn all the CLE you need before the Dec. 31 deadline with savings over $160. Choose from two packages: the Legal Essentials Package, which offers eight hours of CLE, or Navigating the Pandemic Package, which offers 7.75 hours of CLE. Take them both and earn 15.75 hours! Pricing will be available through Dec. 4. If you have questions, please contact the CLE team at cle@tnbar.org.

Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk fired former assistant district attorney Pam Anderson last month after she recommended against charging a police recruit with murder and referred to him as an “excellent shot” in an email, the Tennessean reports. Nathan Glass was working as a security guard for a Nashville restaurant when he shot and killed DeAngelo Knox outside the business. Glass, who had been accepted into Nashville’s police training academy at the time, claimed he shot Knox out of self-defense after he saw him with a gun. Claiming there was not enough evidence to prove otherwise, Anderson declined to pursue the case. In an email to a police investigator, Anderson said Glass had “justifiably killed” Knox. “Ha! The security guard was an excellent shot,” she wrote in a March 2019 email. Funk became aware of the email last month and fired Anderson on Nov. 2. He also reversed Anderson’s recommendation on the case and Glass was indicted on one count of second-degree murder this month. Anderson says the email was taken out of context and that it only reflected her exclamation upon remembering the case and the suspect's skill with a firearm.

Attorney General Herbert Slatery and a coalition of over 30 attorneys general today announced a $113 million settlement with Apple Inc. over the company’s decision to throttle iPhone speeds in order to address unexpected shutdowns in some devices. A multi-state investigation found that, after discovering that batteries were leading to unexpected shutdowns of iPhones, Apple hid the issues from consumers instead of disclosing the issue and replacing the batteries. That concealment led to a software update in December 2016 that reduced iPhone performance to keep the phones from shutting down. Apple will pay Tennessee $2,113,063.81 and must also provide truthful information to consumers about iPhone battery health, performance and power management. Read more on the terms of the settlement.

Purdue Pharma yesterday pleaded guilty to three criminal charges in federal court, formally acknowledging the role it has played in the opioid epidemic, the Associated Press reports. Purdue, which makes OxyContin, took responsibility for impeding the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s efforts to combat the addiction crisis, admitting it lied to the DEA about having an effective program to prevent prescription drugs from being diverted to the black market. Purdue also admitted to paying doctors through a speakers program to induce them to write more painkiller prescriptions. The guilty pleas were part of a criminal and civil settlement announced last month between Purdue and the Justice Department. The deal includes $8.3 billion in penalties and forfeitures, but the company will only pay the federal government $225 million as long as it executes a settlement moving through federal bankruptcy court with state and local governments and other entities suing it over the toll of the opioid epidemic.

Attorney General Herbert Slatery and Attorneys General of 45 additional states and the District of Columbia have reached a settlement agreement with The Home Depot, resolving a multi-state investigation into a 2014 data breach. The breach exposed the credit card information of roughly 40 million customers after hackers gained access to Home Depot’s network and deployed malware on the company’s self-checkout system. Per the settlement, Home Depot must pay $17.5 million to the states. Tennessee will receive $253,004.06 of that settlement. Additionally, Home Depot must implement and maintain a series of data security practices. Read the settlement terms here.

The Republican Caucus in the Tennessee House of Representatives has voted to close its meetings to the press, WPLN reports. Traditionally, the GOP Caucus allowed reporters to attend and report on events and discussions from the party meetings, but on Tuesday voted to shift away from this practice. Caucus Chair Rep. Jeremy Faison says the new rule is standard policy in legislatures across the country and that leadership will talk to reporters after each meeting to answer questions. Per Senate rules, the Senate GOP Caucus will continue to keep its meetings open.

The U.S. Justice Department has rescheduled the execution date of Lisa Montgomery, the only female on federal death row, the Associated Press reports. Montgomery’s original execution date of Dec. 8 was delayed after her two Tennessee-based federal public defenders contracted the COVID-19 virus and asked for more time to prepare a clemency appeal. The execution is now scheduled for Jan. 12, eight days ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, a vocal opponent of the death penalty. Montgomery’s execution would be the first time the federal government has put a woman to death in more than six decades, and it would be one of three federal executions set for that week. Montgomery’s lawyers have argued that their client suffers from serious mental illnesses.