Stacie Odeneal, a child welfare law specialist from Lawrenceburg, has announced she is running to fill the seat on the 22nd District Circuit Court recently made vacant by the retirement of Judge Stella Hargrove. According to a release from Odeneal’s campaign, she is one of only 31 child welfare law specialists in the state and focuses on serving children and families in Lawrence, Maury, Wayne and Giles counties. A graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, Odeneal says she has served more than 2,500 families in 15 years of practicing law. She’ll be running as an Independent on the August ballot. “I like my courts like I like America — Independent,” said Odeneal in the release. “In my courtroom, only the law and the facts can matter. You should be able to trust that to be true outside the courtroom as well.”

Tres Wittum, a research analyst for Sen. Bo Watson, R-Chattanooga, has announced he is running for the open 5th District Congressional seat, the Tennessee Journal reports. According to Wittum’s campaign announcement, he has been active in state politics for more than 15 years, serving the Senate since 2011 in both the Senate Speaker Pro Tempore’s office and the Senate Finance, Ways & Means Committee. Wittum joins a growing list of candidates seeking the Republican nod, including  Geni Batchelor, Jeff Beierlein, Natisha Brooks, Beth Harwell, Baxter Lee, Timothy Lee, Andy Ogles, Morgan Ortagus, Stewart T. Parks, Robby Starbuck and Kurt Winstead. Ortagus, Starbuck and Baxter Lee all face formal challenges with the Tennessee Republican Party, which prompted a technical removal from the ballot. The GOP executive committee by Thursday will vote on whether to allow them back on the ballot.  

The Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) is recommending that the American Bar Association replace Model Rule 5.5 with a new rule "to better reflect the way lawyers practice in the 21st Century.” The group’s proposal would allow a lawyer admitted in any U.S. jurisdiction to practice law and represent willing clients without regard to the geographic location of the lawyer or the client, the forum where the services are to be provided, or the rules that would apply at a given moment in time. Lawyers would still be subject to judicial authority in each state and the disciplinary jurisdiction of their state of licensure and any other state where they practice. The proposal was developed by the APRL’s Future of Lawyering Committee and approved by its board in March. Read the committee report and a letter from APRL President and Memphis lawyer Brian Faughnan to the ABA explaining the proposal.

The Administrative Office of the Courts yesterday announced that Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Norma McGee Ogle will retire at the end of June. Ogle was appointed to the court by then Gov. Don Sundquist in 1998. It was a career move that wasn’t on her radar even though her husband Rex Henry Ogle was serving as a circuit court judge, the AOC relates. Prior to joining the court, Ogle was in private practice in Sevierville. She earned her law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1977. Reflecting on her time on the bench, Ogle says she has loved the work, has had wonderful colleagues and has never stopped learning. Looking to the future, she hopes to see more women on the bench. “We’ve come so far, but we’re still ... a very small minority on the intermediate courts. My hope is that in the future we’ll see more women apply.”

During a recent debate, challenger Sara Beth Myers accused incumbent Davidson County District Attorney General Glenn Funk of violating the state’s “Little Hatch Act” when he recruited several prosecutors from his office to speak during a campaign forum about domestic violence. The state law prevents public officials from using taxpayer resources for elections or pressuring employees to help them get elected. In a statement, Funk said that his employees were talking about their accomplishments prosecuting domestic violence cases and used personal time off to participate. WPLN has more on the story.

Politics within the Republican party have intensified as three high-profile candidates face permanent removal from the 5th Congressional District primary ballot. Morgan Ortagus, Robby Starbuck and Baxter Lee all face formal challenges that have been filed with the Tennessee Republican Party. The challenges trigger a technical removal from the ballot per party bylaws, the Tennessean reports. The state party’s executive committee will vote by Thursday whether to add the candidates back on the ballot.

For those who would like to learn more about conservatorship work, the TBA is offering a free one-hour Zoom discussion on best practices, with a focus on general practice and small and solo firms. Nashville lawyer Amy Willoughby Bryant and Lebanon lawyer Travenia Holden will present the session on April 25 from 2-3 p.m. CDT. An optional hour of CLE credit is available for $50. For more information or questions contact TBA’s Director of Education and Professional Development Jennifer Vossler.

Nashville lawyer Gerard Stranch IV with Branstetter, Stranch & Jennings and University of Tennessee College of Law Professor Paula Schaefer recently joined a panel discussion hosted by the Jacob Burns Center for Ethics at Cardozo Law School in New York City. The session “Big Law, Big Discovery, Big Trouble,” looked at misconduct by the law firm of Arnold & Porter in its representation of Endo Pharmaceuticals, which resulted in two default judgments against the company in Tennessee. The virtual program also included Georgetown University Law Center Professor of Law Maria Glover and Cardozo Law School Professor Anthony Sebok, co-director of the Burns Center. Endo was the subject of a number of opioid-related law suits in Tennessee. Read past TBA Today coverage of those cases.

The Tennessee Innocence Project and its client Joyce Watkins, along with the Davidson County District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit, were featured on CBS Sunday Morning over the weekend and on CBS News yesterday. The piece looks at a partnership between the two organizations, which led to exoneration of the 74-year-old Watkins and her boyfriend (who died in prison) three decades after being convicted for killing her four-year-old great-niece. Once the district attorney’s office began reviewing the case, it found “so much information” that the fatal injuries to the child happened before she was in Joyce’s custody, said Sunny Eaton with the review unit, who also appeared on the program. Read more about the case or watch the interview.

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals ruled last week that Oscar Smith, 71, had “not presented new scientific evidence establishing that he is actually innocent of the murders of the victims,” the Tennessean reports. Smith’s legal team has asked the court to reopen the case after DNA from an unknown person was detected on one of the murder weapons. The trial court previously rejected the request. Smith’s public defender had filed a motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court earlier in the day Thursday seeking a stay of execution so the appellate court could have time to consider the motions. In the opinion, Judge Timothy Easter said that given the other evidence in the case there was not a “reasonable probability that the recently discovered DNA evidence would have prevented ... prosecution or conviction.” Smith is scheduled to die by lethal injection on April 21. He was convicted in 1990 of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged wife and her two teenage sons.