Tennessee-licensed attorney Steven Ray Minor died July 15 at age 60. Minor, from Virginia, earned his law degree from the College of William and Mary’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law in 1989 and passed the bar exam that same year. He became a partner at Elliott, Lawson & Minor, where he distinguished himself in business and commercial law, civil rights law, constitutional law, employment law, litigation, personal injury defense, state and local law, municipal law, and warranty and products claims. A reception will be held at Abingdon Baptist Church, 361 W Main St, Abingdon, VA 24210 on Aug. 23 from 4 to 6 p.m. EDT.

A man accused of carrying out a 2022 shooting spree in Memphis pleaded guilty Wednesday, concluding the case. Ezekiel Kelly pleaded guilty to all 28 charges he faced, including three counts of first-degree murder and commission of an act of terrorism. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge James Jones Jr. sentenced Kelly to three consecutive life sentences without parole for the murder charges, plus an additional 221 years for the other charges, The Daily Memphian reports. Kelly had been facing the death penalty and was set to go to trial Feb. 9, 2026. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Kelly’s plea spares the victims and their families from waiting years for closure.

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Davidson County lawyer Sornavidya Saba Sankar was transferred to disability inactive status on Aug. 8 for an indefinite period of time and until further order from the Tennessee Supreme Court. The court also suspended all disciplinary proceedings pending against Sankar and closed all records relating to the disability proceeding.

Shelby County lawyer Gerald Denny Waggoner Jr. was reinstated to the practice of law on Aug. 8. Waggoner was suspended on Aug. 1, 2017, and again on July 11, 2023. The Tennessee Supreme Court also placed Waggoner on probation for two years. During each calendar year of probation, Waggoner must obtain an additional six hours of continuing legal education (CLE) on the proper handling of client funds and property, and engage a practice monitor. The monitor should meet with Waggoner monthly to review his office practices, client retainer agreements and trust accounts, and submit monthly reports to the Board of Professional Responsibility. Waggoner also was directed to employ a certified public accountant to review, reconcile and balance all trust accounts on a biannual basis for two years.

Retired Nashville General Sessions Judge William Higgins died Aug. 11 at the age of 86, The Tennessean reports. A graduate of Cohn High School and Vanderbilt University, Higgins went on to earn his law degree from the Nashville School of Law. After graduating, he served two years in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, served on the Metro Nashville Council for three terms and practiced law for 13 years before running for the Davidson County General Sessions Court in 1980. He won that race and subsequently was elected to five terms. He was named presiding judge of the court in 2013. He retired in September 2022 to return to practicing law. At that time, the Tennessee legislature recognized his more than 40 years of service on the bench and lauded him as "one of the finest judges this State has ever produced.” Funeral arrangements have not been announced yet.

Nashville’s longest serving criminal court judge died Aug. 11 at the age of 87, The Tennessean reports. Judge J. Randall Wyatt Jr. spent 43 years serving the judicial system, including eight years as a general sessions court judge and then as a criminal court judge. He retired in 2017. Two years later, his portrait was unveiled at the Justice A.A. Birch Building in front of family, friends and colleagues. While working as a Nashville Metro police officer, Wyatt studied at Middle Tennessee State University and then Vanderbilt University Law School. After receiving his law degree, Wyatt became an FBI special agent in Detroit. He later returned to Nashville and became an assistant district attorney, a legal advisor to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and then was elected as a general sessions judge. Funeral arrangements have not been announced yet.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) and the Ross Early Learning Center have agreed to settle allegations that they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by refusing to allow certain communications related to continuous glucose monitoring on behalf of a three-year-old student with Type 1 Diabetes. The agreement was announced by Robert E. McGuire, acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. According to the complaint, the child was prescribed a continuous glucose monitor, which would transmit an alarm if blood sugar dropped or spiked. The parents asked the learning center to monitor the device, which it agreed to do only until the school nurse left the property each afternoon. It also said it could not communicate with the parents about the device except by phone or email. Under the agreement, MNPS will modify its policies to provide monitoring devices, dedicated mobile devices to interface with the monitors and training to help staff manage alerts. It also will pay the family $1,000. Read more in a release from the U.S. attorney’s office.

The Tennessee Supreme Court recently declined to hear the final appeal of an anti-transit referendum group, nine months after Nashville voters approved a sweeping transit proposal. The Committee to Stop an Unfair Tax and former council member Emily Evans pursued litigation after losing their bid to defeat the ballot initiative. While an appellate panel ruled in April that the transit tax could not be used to buy land for transit-adjacent housing and parks, it largely left the measure untouched, echoing an earlier opinion by the chancery court. The Nashville Banner highlights the court’s action in its daily newsletter.

A statue of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall will be unveiled on Oct. 3 at 5 p.m. CDT in downtown Columbia. News Channel 5 reports that the statue will mark the role Marshall played representing 25 Black men charged in what is now called the Columbia Race Riot of 1946. The incident stemmed from an argument between a white shop worker and a Black man, James Stephenson, who had brought in a radio to be repaired. The confrontation turned violent. After Stephenson was charged with attempted murder, a mob sought Stephenson for what the Black community believed to be a lynching. The Black residents resisted the mob but then were criminally charged. Marshall — who later would become the U.S. Supreme Court's first Black justice — was the lead attorney defending Stephenson and the others. They were acquitted. The bronze statue will stand at the center of a new roundabout in downtown Columbia.