CLAY, Circuit Judge. Defendant Bryce Axline appeals the 65-month sentence imposed by the district court following his plea to the charges of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault on federal lands in violation of Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-13-213, 39-13-106 and 18 U.S.C. §§ 13, 7(3). Axline argues that the district court imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence by failing to provide sufficiently compelling reasons for varying upward from the Sentencing Guidelines advisory range by approximately 40 percent. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

A Knox County jury convicted the Defendant, Gavin Quaedvlieg, of rape. The Defendant appeals, contending that the prosecutor impermissibly commented upon his silence at trial during the State’s rebuttal closing argument and that the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial on this issue. The State argues that the Defendant has waived plenary review of this issue and that he is not entitled to plain error relief. In his reply brief, the Defendant counters that he has not waived plenary review and that, in any event, he is entitled to plain error relief. We conclude that the Defendant has waived plenary review and that he is not entitled to plain error relief. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

A Madison County jury found Defendant, Bobby Neil Mathis, Jr., guilty as charged of one count of rape of a child and one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child. The trial court merged the two counts and sentenced Defendant to thirty years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, Defendant argues he is entitled to a new trial because the State failed to elect offenses for the two counts presented to the jury, the trial court erred in failing to issue a modified unanimity instruction, and the evidence was insufficient to sustain the jury’s verdicts. After review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Defendant, Frank James Hastings, appeals his effective sentence of twenty-two years related to three cases in which he entered open best interest pleas. On appeal, Defendant argues that his sentence is excessive and that the trial court erred by imposing partial consecutive service and denying alternative sentencing. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The Defendant, Rashard Fair, pled guilty in the Shelby County Criminal Court to voluntary manslaughter and received a three-year sentence to be served as one year in confinement followed by two years on probation. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred by denying his requests for judicial diversion and full probation and that the trial court should have disqualified itself because the trial court’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Based upon the oral arguments, the record, and the parties’ briefs, we conclude that the trial court erred by failing to address fully on the record its reasons for denying judicial diversion and full probation. We also conclude that the trial court’s statements during the sentencing hearing, particularly the trial court’s comments about judicial diversion for the crime of voluntary manslaughter and the trial court’s decision to increase the Defendant’s sentence of confinement in response to defense counsel’s request for bond pending appeal, call into question the trial court’s impartiality in this case. Accordingly, we reverse and vacate the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for a new sentencing hearing, at which another judge shall preside, to determine the length and manner of service of the Defendant’s sentence.

Register now for the 28th Annual Labor & Employment Law Forum as we bring together professionals, labor and employment attorneys, and in-house counsel on May 3 in Nashville. This is a terrific opportunity to learn from some of the top professionals in the labor and employment arena who will provide practical insight on emerging trends and critical issues. This year’s program features topics such as non-competition agreements, emerging labor trends, new pregnancy accommodation laws, case law update and the use of artificial intelligence in discovery and beyond. As a member of the TBA L&E Section, you will always receive a section member discount to attend CLE programming produced by the section.

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The TBA YLD held an Essential Documents for Essential Workers (EDEW) clinic on Feb. 24. Volunteer attorneys and Belmont law students drafted wills, powers of attorney and advanced health care directives for low income clients, providing a total of $16,000 in free legal services. See a photo from the event.

Join us as we celebrate National Ethics Awareness Month on March 27 with three back-to-back ethics webcasts led by CLE performer Stuart Teicher. Starting at 9 a.m. CST, Teicher will host Learn by Doing: An Hour of Legal Writing Exercises, a look at how to improve your legal writing. At 10:15 a.m., Teicher will take up Airplane Etiquette and Attorney Ethics, followed by Taylor Swift is a Genius. Even About Legal Ethics at 11:30 a.m. Teicher will discuss how ethics rules have been invoked in some of Taylor Swift’s run ins with the legal system. Visit the individual event pages for more information and to register.

As chair of the Labor & Employment Section, I want to thank you for your section membership and your support for what we do each year. As you know, each May our section holds its annual Labor & Employment Forum. This year, our 28th Annual Forum will be held on May 3 in Nashville. I am excited about our top-notch line-up of panelists, who will cover a wide variety of issues, including non-competition agreements, emerging labor trends, new pregnancy accommodation laws and the use of artificial intelligence in discovery and beyond. In addition to the annual forum, our section presents employment-related CLE webinars. Our most recent webinar was a panel discussion of federal magistrate judges on the topic of discovery disputes. If you missed it, you can always view these presentations in the TBA CLE Course Catalog.

Finally, our section also publishes a quarterly newsletter in which seasoned practitioners share their insight about developing trends, caselaw updates, and new laws and regulations that can have a major impact on the future of labor and employment law. Our newsletter strives to seek contributing authors from different viewpoints, including views from employees, unions, management and in-house counsel.

Thank you for your support of the TBA Labor & Employment Law Section. If you have a friend or colleague who might be interested in joining our section, please feel free to contact me (dhamill@mhemploymentlaw.com) or TBA Section Coordinator Chelsea Bennett (cbennett@tnbar.org). If you have ideas or thoughts for our section, or if you are interested in writing an article for the newsletter, please reach out to me.

— Doug Hamill

House Bill 1605 passed Monday with a vote of 70-24. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, would prohibit the display of any flags that “represent a political viewpoint, including but not limited to, a partisan, racial, sexual orientation, gender or other ideological viewpoint.” The bill does not explicitly prohibit the display of the Nazi or Confederate flags, reports the Tennessean. Bulso confirmed that he sponsored the bill on behalf of parents in his district who are concerned about display of the pride flags in Williamson County Schools classrooms. A companion bill could be up for a final vote in the Senate as early as Thursday, having passed the Senate Education Committee in a 5-4 vote last week. HB1183/SB0503, a wide-ranging amendment that would overhaul Tennessee's standardized testing requirements for public school students and make sweeping changes to teacher and principal accountability procedures, was filed Monday. The Tennessean reports that the new, 39-page House amendment is vastly different from a 17-page Senate version and Gov. Bill Lee's seven-page bill that more narrowly deals with school choice. A first committee hearing on the bill was scheduled for today in the House K-12 Subcommittee, and the Senate Education Committee is set to take up the bill on Wednesday afternoon.