Paul Moyle has joined the Hamilton County District Attorney's Office as chief homicide prosecutor, Chattanoogan.com reports. Moyle, a second-generation prosecutor, is a former military police officer with the Alabama Army National Guard who deployed to Iraq in 2010. He graduated from Cumberland School of Law in 2007 and has been working as an assistant district attorney general in the 10th Judicial District, which serves Bradley, McMinn, Monroe and Polk counties. Most recently, he was team leader for Bradley and Polk counties. He also practiced law with a small firm in Cleveland and as a solo practioner and was an assistant public defender in the district.

An investiture ceremony for Denise E. Barnett, bankruptcy judge for the Western District of Tennessee, will take place July 14 at 2 p.m. CDT. The ceremony will be held at Memphis City Hall, 125 N Main St., Memphis 38103. A reception will follow in the Hall of Mayors. Please RSVP by June 30 to barnett.rsvp@tnwb.uscourts.gov. Barnett was appointed to the post in 2021 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She previously was a trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department’s trustee program. Read more about her career in this release from the court.

The state Department of Children’s Services (DCS) held a “surge” over the weekend designed to reduce caseload backlogs, Tennessee Lookout reports. The goal was to visit up to 200 families who had been reported to the DCS on suspicion of child abuse or neglect, interview parents and kids, and close cases where there was no longer fear about child safety. The initiative is one of several new strategies being deployed to address extraordinary high caseloads, which have led to social workers leaving in droves over the past year and children sleeping on office building floors. DCS Commissioner Margi Quin says department needs to reduce backlogs by a third.

After a fire at a rental home, suit was brought against the tenant. During discovery, the tenant sought admissions related to the landlords’ insurance coverage and as to whether the suit was actually a subrogation action by the insurer brought in the names of the insured. As a result of resistance to disclosure, the tenant moved to compel. The trial court granted the motion. Following admissions indicating that this suit is a subrogation action by the insurer brought in the names of the insured, the tenant moved for summary judgment asserting that under the Sutton Rule she is an implied co-insured under the landlords’ insurance policy. Opposition to summary judgment was advanced based upon the purported inapplicability of the Sutton Rule and the purported applicability of the collateral source rule. The trial court granted summary judgment to the tenant. This appeal followed. We affirm the trial court’s grant of the motion to compel and summary judgment in favor of the tenant.

Just after midnight Friday, federal Judge Thomas Parker struck down Tennessee's law restricting drag performances, finding it to be an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech. He also found the law to be “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad," the Commercial Appeal reports. While Parker recognized the state has a “compelling interest in protecting the psychological and physical wellbeing of children” he questioned the law’s necessity noting that Tennessee law already bans obscenity. The law, signed by Gov. Bill Lee in March, would have banned "adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors" from public places and venues where children are present. It was challenged in the western district of the state by Memphis-based theater group Friends of George's. Parker had imposed a temporary restraining order on implementation of the law in April. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said Saturday the state plans to appeal “at the appropriate time.” He also disputed claims that Parker’s order applies across the state. "The Adult Entertainment Act remains in effect outside of Shelby County,” he told the paper. 

The Petitioner, Floyd Hall, III, appeals the Haywood County Circuit Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his conviction for second degree murder. On appeal, the Petitioner argues that the post-conviction court erred by denying his claim that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel by trial counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress a statement the Petitioner gave to the police. We affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment.

This appeal involves the denial of a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.02 motion. In the original action, the trial court granted summary judgment to the City of Mount Carmel, Tennessee (“the City”), finding that it had negated an essential element of the plaintiff’s claim against it. In the summary judgment pleadings, the City presented expert evidence concluding that the retaining wall in question was failing due to lateral earth pressure and not a problem with the foundation. In that report, the expert stated that the backfill of the retaining wall was red clay but that regardless of whether the backfill consisted of red clay or crushed stone, the wall would fail. The plaintiff presented no evidence to rebut this opinion. The plaintiff filed a Rule 60.02 motion seeking to be relieved of the grant of summary judgment after discovering that the backfill of the wall was crushed stone and not red clay as stated in the expert’s report.1 The trial court denied the Rule 60.02 motion upon its determination that even with a backfill of crushed stone, summary judgment still would have been granted. Discerning no error, we affirm.

The 2023 edition of the “Black Guide to Law School” is out but with a big change, Above the Law reports. The annual publication from Lawyers of Color typically provides a single, comprehensive ranking of schools designed to help Black prospective law students choose a school. This year, the group abandoned the ranking, instead publishing information from law school reports filed with the ABA. “We are marking this as the end of the rankings era,” the publication explains. Instead, the group reports on “data that is objective and verifiable” and leaves the significance up to students to decide. Read the full report.

A push by local and state leaders to reform the bail system in Memphis may take longer than expected, WREG News 3 reports. At a news conference last week, a county commissioner and state senator spoke about the need to fix the system to curb crime. “We as a community have had our patience tested, and it’s come back negative,” state Senator Brent Taylor, R-Memphis, said. “We are completely at our wits’ end when it comes to crime.” Commissioner Mick Wright said the group is waiting on information from the court to establish a baseline as to the number of people arrested and bail amounts for the last six months. A resolution passed by the city commission last August directed the collection of that data. But that has not happened. Wright said the courts claim they did not know they were supposed to be tracking the information.

The TBA Annual Convention in Knoxville next week will feature a timely session on how ChatGPT can help attorneys in their practice. Sydney Beckman with Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law and Wesley Clark with Brazil Clark will discuss why lawyers should embrace, rather than reject, ChatGPT’s capabilities. They also will focus on the limitations of artificial intelligence, highlighting the human qualities that clients need but AI cannot provide. The session, moderated by Lincoln Memorial University’s Melanie Reid, will take place Thursday from 4-5:30 p.m. EDT at the Marriott Knoxville Downtown Hotel. Want to join colleagues just for this program? The TBA is making a select number of programs available for purchase separate from the full convention registration. Sign up here.