Mark your calendars for the 2026 Estate Planning & Probate Forum, scheduled for March 6, 2026 in Franklin. This annual event will provide seven hours of CLE credit and include sessions on litigation and estate planning, public receivership, a probate panel, and a legislative update. Section members receive discounted registration. Get more information and register on the TBA's website.

This is a divorce case following a long-term marriage. Wife appeals the trial court’s: 1) valuation and distribution of marital property and allocation of debt; 2) award of transitional alimony; 3) downward deviation of Husband’s child support obligation; and 4) denial of her request for her attorney’s fees to be paid from the marital estate. We affirm the trial court’s valuation of property; vacate the trial court’s division of marital debt, in part; vacate the alimony award; and reverse the court’s downward deviation from the Child Support Guidelines. We remand for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.

READLER, Circuit Judge. Donald Sims violated the terms of his supervised release. He challenges the resulting above-Guidelines sentence that the district court imposed as procedurally and substantively unreasonable. We disagree and affirm the district court.

A Hamilton County Criminal Court Jury convicted Defendant, Justin David Whaley, of vehicular homicide by intoxication, reckless driving, driving under the influence of an intoxicant (“DUI”), reckless vehicular homicide, and multiple driving-related misdemeanor offenses, and the trial court merged the convictions into one conviction for vehicular homicide by intoxication and sentenced Defendant to nine years’ incarceration. Defendant appealed, and while his direct appeal was pending, he filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis based on newly discovered evidence. Following a hearing, the trial court granted coram nobis relief in part, vacating Defendant’s convictions for vehicular homicide by intoxication and DUI but denying relief as to Defendant’s remaining convictions. Both Defendant and the State appealed the trial court’s coram nobis order, and this court consolidated Defendant’s direct appeal with both parties’ appeals of the trial court’s coram nobis order. On appeal, Defendant challenges: (1) the sufficiency of the evidence for his convictions for vehicular homicide and DUI; (2) the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained by a search warrant for a blood draw; (3) the admission of the results of the analysis of his blood sample and the retrograde extrapolation as unreliable; (4) the admission of testimony of a Tennessee Department of Transportation (“TDOT”) employee as improper lay opinion; (5) the trial court’s decision to allow the jury to visit the scene; and (6) the jury instructions on mistake of fact and reckless vehicular homicide. Defendant also contends that the cumulative effect of the errors at trial warrants relief and that the trial court erred in failing to grant coram nobis relief for all his convictions. In its cross- appeal, the State asserts that the trial court erred by granting partial coram nobis relief. Upon review, we reverse the trial court’s order granting coram nobis relief for Defendant’s convictions of vehicular homicide by intoxication and DUI, and we reinstate those convictions. Because the trial court only imposed sentences for the vehicular homicide by intoxication conviction, we remand for a sentencing hearing for the remaining convictions and the entry of corrected judgments reflecting separate sentences for each conviction. We otherwise affirm the judgments of the trial court.

In 2021, the Defendant, Richard Kinsinger, Jr., pleaded guilty to sexual battery by an authority figure, and the trial court sentenced the Defendant to serve six months in confinement and five years on probation. On appeal, the Defendant asserts that the trial court erred when it sentenced him. After review, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

Petitioner, Kentavis Antwon Jones, appeals the dismissal of his post-conviction petition, arguing that the post-conviction court erroneously dismissed the petition for not being in the proper form without giving him reasonable opportunity to correct the petition with the assistance of counsel. He also argues that he is entitled to equitable tolling due to the negligence of his trial counsel. The State responds that the post-conviction court properly dismissed the petition as untimely and that Petitioner is not entitled to equitable tolling. Following our review of the entire record and the briefs of the parties, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Defendant, Jonathan Hall, pled guilty in two separate cases to one count of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in exchange for dismissal of a related domestic violence charge and an effective eight-year sentence with the trial court to determine the manner of service. The trial court sentenced Defendant to concurrent sentences of confinement, four years for the aggravated assault charge to be served at 100% and eight years for the possession of a firearm charge to be served at 85%. Defendant appeals, arguing that the trial court erred by denying his request for a suspended sentence. Upon our review of the entire record, the briefs of the parties, and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

In this case, two Tennessee voters challenge the state House and Senate redistricting maps the General Assembly passed after the 2020 census. Gary Wygant, a Gibson County voter, alleges that the House redistricting map violates Article II, Section 5 of the Tennessee Constitution because it splits more counties than needed to comply with federal law. Francie Hunt, a Davidson County voter, alleges that the Senate redistricting map violates Article II, Section 3 of the Tennessee Constitution because it fails to consecutively number one of the four Senate districts in Davidson County. We hold that Wygant has standing to challenge only the split of Gibson County, not the entire House map. But his challenge fails on the merits: Wygant did not prove—as he must to establish a violation of Article II, Section 5—that the split was unnecessary to comply with federal law and lacked a rational or legitimate basis. We further hold that Hunt lacks standing to challenge the Senate map because she did not suffer an injury in fact from the misnumbering of Davidson County’s Senate districts. We therefore affirm the trial court’s judgment rejecting Wygant’s district- specific challenge on the merits, reverse the judgment concluding that Hunt has standing, and vacate the judgment holding the Senate map unconstitutional.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Tennessee public employee who claims she was unlawfully fired from her state government job for criticizing Charlie Kirk in a Facebook comment following his assassination. Monica Meeks was dismissed from her role at the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance even though her Facebook profile did not link her to the job, ABC 3340 reports. The lawsuit names Tennessee Commissioner of Commerce and Insurance Carter Lawrence and argues that Meeks’ First Amendment rights were violated given that her post did not disrupt government functions. Other state and university employees have reported being terminated for comments about Kirk.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 8 declined to hear an appeal from a Tennessee woman challenging the rejection of her '69PWNDU' personalized plate, The Tennessean reports. Leah Gilliam argued that states’ rules for what is and isn’t allowed on personalized plates are often unclear and can amount to a “dizzying array of censorship.” She had asked the court to rule that her plate expressed her own views, not the government’s. The justices let stand a ruling from Tennessee’s highest court that vanity plates constitute government speech under the Supreme Court’s 2015 Walker precedent. The Tennessee Supreme Court issued its opinion in February, rejecting Gilliam’s First Amendment challenge to the state’s personalized plate program.