More than 200 new Tennessee laws took effect on July 1. Among these are several affecting criminal justice practice. Some notable ones include:

• HB1600/SB2911 which bans juveniles convicted of certain crimes from purchasing or owning a firearm until they are 25. Some of these offenses include aggravated assault, aggravated cruelty to animals or threats of mass violence.
• HB1640/SB1769 known as “Jillian’s Law,” blocks criminal defendants found mentally incompetent by a court from purchasing or owning a gun. The law also requires the defendant to be committed for mental health treatment.
• HB1643/SB2028, a companion bill to HB1640, requires the state to pay for court-ordered mental health assessments and treatment of people charged with a misdemeanor and suspected of mental incompetency.
• HB2590/SB1887 increases penalties for bullying and cyberbullying offenses to those like harassment offenses. It also requires police to report bullying or cyberbullying incidents to the parents or guardians of minor victims.
• HB2692/SB1972 dubbed the “Debbie and Marie Domestic Violence Protection Act,” will require some people accused of domestic abuse to wear a GPS monitor as a condition of their bail prior to trial. The accused would have to pay for the GPS costs if issued a no contact order.
• HB1663/SB1834 allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty in criminal cases of child rape under new legislation that will likely draw a legal challenge. Those convicted of the crime could face life imprisonment, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
• HB0587/SB1055 increases minimum jail time for drivers with a blood alcohol level of 0.15% from two to seven days.
• HB2814/SB2710 elevates street drag racing to a Class E felony, punishable with up to six years in prison.
• HB1895/SB1971 makes adults transporting minors for abortions subject to Class A misdemeanor charges.

HB1895, commonly referred to as the "abortion trafficking" bill faces at least one lawsuit, with Rep. Aftyn Behn, D-Nashville, and attorney Rachel Welty suing district attorneys to block local prosecutors from enforcing the law. The Tennessean has more on the many laws taking effect.

On the final day of its term, the U.S. Supreme Court today announced the three remaining opinions in cases argued during the 2023 - 2024 term. In Trump v. United States, the court held that a former president has immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” but not “unofficial acts,” sending the case back to the lower court to determine the application of this principle to facts in the case. “The parties before us do not dispute that a former President can be subject to criminal prosecution for unofficial acts committed while in office,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority. “They also agree that some of the conduct described in the indictment includes actions taken by [President] Trump in his unofficial capacity.” The Tennessean and SCOTUSblog have more on the historic decision.

Today's other opinions include Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors, where the court affords companies more time to challenge many regulations, rejecting the argument that the statute of limitations to file a lawsuit runs from when a regulation is issued and finding instead that begins when a regulation first affects a company, according to Reuters. The case was one of several this term challenging the power of executive agencies, and the ruling could amplify the effect of last week's decision to overturn the Chevron doctrine, according to the New York Times.

Finally, the court kept on hold efforts by Texas and Florida to limit how social media platforms regulate content posted by their users in a ruling that strongly defended the platforms’ free speech rights, reports AP. The court unanimously agreed to return the cases to lower courts for analysis. Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan said the platforms, like newspapers, deserve protection from government intrusion in determining what to include or exclude from their space. “The principle does not change because the curated compilation has gone from the physical to the virtual world,” Kagan wrote in an opinion signed by five justices.

Hamilton County lawyer Jennifer Yates Stickley was reinstated to the practice of law on June 28 after being on inactive status for more than five years. She was placed on inactive status on Jan. 31, 2006. The Board of Professional Responsibility determined that Stickley had satisfied all outstanding obligations to the Tennessee Continuing Legal Education Commission and her reinstatement petition was satisfactory.

Washington, D.C., lawyer Johnnie Daniel Bond Jr. has received a public censure from the Tennessee Supreme Court. The court found that while he was administratively suspended for failure to pay his annual fee and report on IOLTA funds, Bond was engaged in the active practice of law, including filing pleadings, appearing in court and entering agreed orders. During the suspension, Bond also advertised that he had law offices in Memphis and Nashville. These actions were determined to violate Rules of Professional Conduct 5.5 and 7.1.

Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Chris Craft has removed General Sessions Criminal Court Judge Sheila Renfroe from 28 cases she is presiding over amid allegations of bias from Melody Carlisle, an assistant public defender handling the matters. The Daily Memphian reports that Craft found that Renfroe took actions that were “clearly indicative of personal animosity," but he did not permanently ban Renfroe from presiding over other cases handled by Carlisle. Renfroe oversees General Sessions Division 9, which serves as the Shelby County Mental Health Court. She reportedly has had several tense interactions with Carlisle over the past year, including threatening to arrest her. Carlisle also has alleged that Renfroe is imbalanced and a danger to the community.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has put on hold a Nashville judge’s ruling that Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and State Election Coordinator Mark Goins ran afoul of federal law by not informing thousands of individuals convicted of felonies that they may still be eligible to vote. The appeals panel said that the ruling came too late in the election cycle to go into effect this year, Tennessee Journal reports. The decision comes in a 2020 lawsuit brought by the Tennessee chapter of the NAACP, the Campaign Legal Center, Brave Hearts and Baker Donelson law firm. Nashville-based U.S. District Judge William Campbell ruled in May that the state violated federal voting law and ordered it to develop new policies and procedures for processing felony voter registrations and train election workers how to follow it. State officials then asked the appeals court to postpone the changes until after this year’s elections. 

The Petitioner, Kenneth D. Cook, appeals from the denial of his petition seeking postconviction relief from his guilty plea convictions of solicitation of first-degree murder, robbery, and aggravated assault with serious bodily injury. Upon our review, we affirm.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. State employees do not work for the State every hour of the day. They also undertake all sorts of private activities on their own time. Yet the Fourteenth Amendment restricts only the actions of a “State,” and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 grants a remedy only against those who act “under color of” a state law, custom, or the like. So what distinguishes an employee’s state actions that trigger these provisions from the employee’s private actions that do not? The Supreme Court recently addressed this topic in a decision about an employee’s use of social media: Lindke v. Freed, 601 U.S. 187 (2024).

This case allows us to apply Lindke’s guidance. Jeff Rising, a real-estate agent, served one term as a part-time City Commissioner for Adrian, Michigan. Shane Mackey, a local resident, posted information about Rising on Facebook that Rising believed to be false. Rising responded by calling Mackey’s mother. During this call, Mackey alleges, Rising threatened to “hurt” him if he did not delete the post (an allegation that Rising denies). Mackey sued. He argued that Rising’s threat of physical violence violated the First Amendment because Rising made it in his capacity as a Commissioner to stifle Mackey’s speech. Early on in the suit, Rising accepted the City’s insurance to pay for his defense. But he then testified that he had called Mackey’s mother as a private citizen. According to Mackey, Rising’s use of the City’s insurance showed that Rising had waived (or should be judicially estopped from raising) his lack-of-state-action defense.

Mackey is wrong on both fronts. Rising served as a legislator, not a police officer. The City of Adrian thus did not grant him any “authority” to use (or threaten) physical force on its behalf. Id. at 198. And because the City “did not entrust” Rising with this power, his alleged “misuse” of the power cannot qualify as state action. Id. at 199–200. Next, Rising accepted the City’s insurance for his defense because he maintained that the insurer’s duty to defend turned on Mackey’s allegations alone (which claimed that Rising had acted for the City). Because his state-action defense on the merits did not conflict with his view of the insurer’s duty to defend, neither waiver nor judicial estoppel apply. We thus affirm the grant of summary judgment to Rising.

Bobby V. Summers, Defendant, appeals from the trial court’s summary dismissal of his pro se Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 36.1 motion in which he sought to have his plea-bargained conviction for facilitation of first degree murder dismissed. Defendant’s motion did not seek correction of his sentence, and the trial court found that the motion failed to state a colorable claim. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Week June 24, 2024 - June 28, 2024