Juneteenth is now an official state holiday in Tennessee following Gov. Bill Lee signing a new bill into law on May 5, News 9 reports. The bill was sponsored by Rep. William Lamberth, R-Portland, and Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin. Juneteenth was made a federal holiday in 2021. Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and ordered freedom for the enslaved people of the state two months after the end of the Civil War.

A news item in Friday’s TBA Today said that a temporary restraining order had been issued to halt the state's new law banning minors’ access to gender-affirming care. No such order has been issued, though the American Civil Liberties Union in April sued on behalf of several Tennessee families and a Memphis doctor, and the Department of Justice later joined the lawsuit asking the court to do so. The Tennessean has since updated its story that was the source for the TBA Today item. 

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch failed to recuse themselves when considering cert petitions involving their book publishers, the ABA Journal reports. Sotomayor received over $3 million in advance payments between 2010 and 2012 from Penguin Random House. Her disclosure forms also show nearly $500,000 in book royalties and advances from 2017-2021. Penguin had cases before the court in 2013, 2019 and 2020. Gorsuch reported earnings of $655,000 on his book published in 2019 according to financial disclosure for 2018, 2019 and 2020. He did not recuse himself from considering a cert petition in a recent case, according to the Journal. In related news, an article today from SCOTUSblog has information about all of the justices’ 2023 financial disclosures.

The Tennessee Revised Uniform Arbitration Act (RUAA), recently signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee and set to go into effect July 1, replaces current arbitration law that was drafted in the late 1950s and has been in place in Tennessee since the early 1980s. The new statute updates and changes arbitration procedures to meet modern needs, addressing numerous procedural issues not included in the original act. It also provides that many, if not all, of its provisions may be waived by contract. Some of the new provisions include:

• allows courts and arbitrators to order provisional remedies;
• requires potential arbitrators to disclose any known fact that could affect their impartiality before being appointed and creates a presumption of partiality when non-disclosure occurs;
• clarifies arbitrator authority by providing that arbitrators may make summary depositions of claims or issues, use discovery processes, and conduct proceedings as appropriate to ensure they are fair and expeditious; and
• provides arbitrators with immunity from civil liability to the same extent as a judge acting in a judicial capacity;
• does not permit class or collective actions in arbitration unless the agreement to arbitrate between the parties expressly permits such actions; and
• does not allow punitive damages be awarded in arbitration if the agreement between the parties specifically excludes them.

Congratulations to the TBA Dispute Resolution Section for their years of hard work and perseverance getting the RUAA passed! Join attorneys Bob Arrington and Matt Haskell for a webcast on June 21 where they will discuss why the law was updated and what those updates mean for your practice.

HB1162 / SB0775

What is ROI? How is a general ledger different from a balance sheet? What is an SEC Form 10-K? This webcast program on May 17 from noon-1 p.m. CDT will cover the essential principles of accounting that attorneys should know, including how accounting can be crucial to certain cases, how to read and understand key financial documents (like balance sheets and profit and loss statements), and how to know which financial questions you should be asking your clients, as well as which documents you need from clients and opposing counsel. Learn more and register here.

Shelby County lawyer Robert Sadler Bailey Jr., received a public censure yesterday from the Tennessee Supreme Court for failing to hold disputed funds in a trust account until the dispute was resolved. The court determined that Bailey violated Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15(e).

Failure to show up for court has serious consequences for individuals and the court system as a whole, and the reasons may be as mundane as lack of transportation, family obligations or simply forgetting to appear. Jurisdictions throughout the country are seeking ways to get more people through the courthouse doors. The North Carolina Court Appearance Project was created by court stakeholders in New Hanover, Robeson and Orange counties, with technical assistance support from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the University of North Carolina School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab. In August 2021, each county convened a group of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, clerks and members of law enforcement to study nonappearance rates and root causes and to propose solutions. Pew Trusts has published a summary of the findings.

The Defendant, Tinisha Nicole Spencer, appeals her jury conviction for driving under the influence, fifth offense. The trial court sentenced her to two years suspended after service of 150 days in jail. On appeal, the Defendant challenges whether the State established an unbroken chain of custody for her blood sample, whether the sentence enhancement counts were void because they included the dates of the prior offenses rather than the dates of conviction as required by statute, and whether the sentence enhancement counts vested the trial court with jurisdiction to sentence her as a multiple offender because they incorporated a facially void judgment. Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

In this post-conviction appeal, the Petitioner-Appellant, Gregg Merrilees, seeks relief from his original convictions of aggravated robbery and robbery in concert with two or more persons, for which he received an effective sentence of sixteen years’ imprisonment. He subsequently filed a petition seeking post-conviction relief, which was denied by the postconviction court. The Petitioner now appeals and raises a stand-alone challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. In addition, the Petitioner argues four grounds in support of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim: (1) trial counsel’s failure to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence based on the lack of accomplice corroboration in a motion for judgment of acquittal or on direct appeal; (2) trial counsel’s failure to request a jury instruction on accomplice corroboration; (3) trial counsel’s failure to object based on speculation to the hotel clerk-victim’s accusation that the Petitioner was involved in the offenses based on the hotel clerk-victim’s “gut”; and (4) trial counsel’s failure to object to “the unconstitutional show-up” identification of the Petitioner by the hotel clerk-victim at trial. Upon our review, we affirm.

Appellants filed a petition for common law writ of certiorari, seeking judicial review of Appellee Fayette County Board of Zoning Appeals’ grant of a special exception to other Appellees for the construction of a solar farm. The trial court denied the writ of certiorari. Discerning no error, we affirm.