The 2025 Southeast Complex Litigation Conference will be held Oct. 29 at the Tennessee Bankers Association in Nashville, offering updates on mass torts, class actions and whistleblower cases. National litigators will discuss emerging litigation involving medical devices, pharmaceutical drugs and consumer products, as well as best practices for identifying, prosecuting and defending complex cases. Session topics include class actions and multidistrict litigation basics, whistleblower claims under the False Claims Act and key trends in aggregate litigation. Speakers include Mark Chalos of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein and Tricia Herzfeld of Herzfeld, Suetholz, Gastel, Leniski & Wall, with additional speakers and content to be announced in the coming weeks. For more details, to register and to stay updated, visit the TBA website.

MATHIS, Circuit Judge. Daniel Matthews and Markel Livingston participated in a drug-trafficking enterprise that distributed fentanyl and methamphetamine. Matthews pleaded guilty to drug and firearm offenses. Livingston pleaded guilty to a drug offense. The district court sentenced Matthews to 228 months in prison and Livingston to 74 months in prison.

For the reasons above, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgments.

READLER, Circuit Judge. As they surveilled Devin Long, officers observed him engage in several suspected drug transactions. Based on these discoveries, a magistrate judge issued a warrant to search Long’s house for evidence related to drug trafficking. The search turned up a host of illegal firearms and drugs. Long later moved to suppress the fruits of the search. After the district court rebuffed that effort, Long pleaded guilty to two federal drug charges and two federal firearms charges.

We affirm the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress.

DAVIS, Circuit Judge. A thirty-five-minute standoff on a Nashville highway ended when nine police officers fired roughly thirty-three shots at Landon Eastep. Twelve shots struck and killed him. Mr. Eastep’s wife, Chelesy Eastep, sued the City of Nashville, the City of Mt. Juliet, and nine officers in these consolidated cases on behalf of her husband’s estate. She seeks relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of her husband’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. The officer Defendants moved to dismiss, claiming qualified immunity. The district court denied their motion, and Defendants appeal. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part.

READLER, Circuit Judge. Charles Bozzo was fired from his job as a correctional officer with the Michigan Department of Corrections after a coworker accused him of making harassing comments. Years later, he sued two MDOC employees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the pair violated Bozzo’s constitutional rights in terminating him. The district court dismissed the action on statute of limitations grounds and for failure to state a claim. We affirm.

A Knox County jury convicted the defendant, James Robert Howell, of four counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and one count of assault by offensive or provocative touching, for which he received an effective sentence of four years and six months in confinement. On appeal, the defendant contends the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his convictions. The defendant also contends that the trial court erred in admitting hearsay evidence, in admitting evidence of prior abuse, and in imposing an excessive sentence. Additionally, the defendant claims improper argument by the State affected the verdict. After reviewing the record and considering the applicable law, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Petitioner, an inmate incarcerated by the Tennessee Department of Correction, filed a petition for common law writ of certiorari seeking judicial review of disciplinary proceedings held at Morgan County Correctional Complex. Because the petition was not notarized and because a notarized petition was not filed within sixty days of the denial of his administrative appeal of that decision, the trial court determined that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction. For these reasons, the trial court dismissed the petition. The petitioner appeals. Finding no error with the trial court’s decision, we affirm.

This is an interlocutory appeal as of right, pursuant to Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 10B, filed by Senior Pastor Charles Dowell, Jr. and Priest Baldwin Hutchinson (“Petitioners”) seeking to recuse the trial judge in this case.1 Having reviewed the petition for recusal appeal filed by Petitioners and finding no reversible error, we affirm.

Federal courts across the country are preparing to furlough some staff and curb operations on Monday amid the ongoing government shutdown. Furlough notices will be handed out on Oct. 20 “and orderly shutdown activities will commence,” Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Director Robert Conrad said in a Thursday memo obtained by Bloomberg Law. Conrad said the judiciary “will have no funding to incur obligations or make payments for most activities” now that additional funds have run out. The U.S. Supreme Court says it will run out of money tomorrow, which means the court building will be closed to the public until further notice. It will remain open for official business, according to The Hill. In related news, thousands of lawyers who represent indigent defendants already have been working for over three months without pay. The judiciary expected to pay lawyers on the Criminal Justice Act panel once it received funds for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, but then the shutdown hit. Bloomberg has more on that story.

Mayor Lee Harris has declared a state of emergency in Shelby County, citing a strain on local resources caused by the increase in federal and state law enforcement deployed to Memphis by Gov. Bill Lee and President Donald Trump, according to the Tennessee Lookout. It notes pressures on the county’s overcrowded detention centers as a result of an estimated 200% increase in daily arrests made by members of the Memphis Safe Task Force. The emergency declaration loosens spending rules to respond to an increase in arrests, detentions and other costs incurred by law enforcement. The local state of emergency will continue “until the end of Memphis Safe Task Force operations or until detention facility populations are reduced to capacity level or below,” the declaration states. In related news, a group of state and local leaders reportedly have sued the state over deployment of the National Guard to Memphis. The group, which includes Harris, are seeking a preliminary injunction to block their involvement, the Daily Memphian reports.