Overton County lawyer Jonathan Lee Young has received a public censure from the Tennessee Supreme Court. Young represented a client in an emergency conservatorship petition. During the representation, Young signed another attorney’s name, “with permission,” to an order without authorization from said attorney and then presented said order to the presiding judge ex parte and obtained the judge’s signature. The order named an attorney ad litem to the conservatorship case, and Young, after obtaining the judge’s signature, failed to then file the pleading with the clerk of the court and failed to advise the guardian ad litem or the newly appointed attorney ad litem of the court order. In the same case, Young also filed pleadings with incomplete information and multiple documents with improper notarizations. Young executed a conditional guilty plea acknowledging that his conduct violated Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct 1.3, 3.3(a) and 3.5(b).

A federal court in Mississippi has issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule that would extend federal prohibition of sex discrimination, part of the Affordable Care Act health insurance law, to discrimination against transgender people. The rule would have gone into effect on July 5. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced the lawsuit in May. Read Skrmetti's statement on the ruling.

President Joe Biden awarded posthumous Medals of Honor to two Civil War veterans whose remains are buried in Chattanooga for their role in the "Great Locomotive Chase." The Times Free Press reports that Pvt. Philip G. Shadrach and Pvt. George D. Wilson were members of Andrews' Raiders — a group that attempted a daring train hijacking behind Confederate lines in Georgia in 1862 before the participants were caught and most of them executed. Nearly all of them received the then-newly created Medal of Honor not long after. But because of what advocates say was an administrative error, Shadrach and Wilson did not. "Today's decision rectifies a historical oversight that has deprived Privates Shadrach and Wilson from receiving our nation's highest military honor for valor on the battlefield," David Currey, the executive director of Chattanooga's Medal of Honor Heritage Center, said in a statement.

The University of Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville will give honorary degrees to former Sen. Lamar Alexander and civil rights leader Rita Sanders Geier. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that a date for conferring the degrees has not been set, but UT has announced that Alexander will receive an honorary Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy from the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, while Geier will receive an honorary Doctorate of Laws. Alexander, originally from Maryville, was Tennessee's governor from 1979 to 1987 and served as the 18th UT president from 1988 to 1991. He helped set some groundwork for UT to move forward with his vision for connecting with Oak Ridge National Lab. Geier, a Memphis native, attended Fisk University, then received her master's degree from the University of Chicago and her law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School. Along with four other plaintiffs, Geier filed a class action lawsuit against the state of Tennessee in 1968, saying Black students and faculty members were segregated from equal higher education opportunities. The lawsuit brought systemic change to higher education systems across the South, including through the 2001 Geier Consent Decree, which provided $77 million from the state of Tennessee to help diversify institutions and fund scholarships.

Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court Division 8 Judge Lee Wilson, who also runs the county’s drug court program, will now manage Shelby County’s 14 judicial commissioners, taking over for General Sessions Division 7 Judge Bill Anderson who has led the commissioners for the last two years. The Daily Memphian reports that a new law that took effect on July 1 requires an annual rotation of management of judicial commissioner programs in counties with more than one General Sessions judge. Shelby County has nine.

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. Mike Govender Hatchet sought, on numerous occasions, an adjustment of his immigration status to that of lawful permanent resident. To do so, he applied for such discretionary relief, which was adjudicated by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”). USCIS denied each of Hatchet’s applications, relying on facts that it found rendered Hatchet ineligible for discretionary relief. Eventually, Hatchet challenged the agency’s actions in federal district court, claiming, in effect, that the agency relied on facts clearly at odds with the record. But because Congress has stripped us of our ability to review such claims concerned with the facts found during discretionary-relief proceedings, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

Petitioner, Dan E. Durell, filed a “Motion for Correction of Sentencing Documents” (“the Motion”), claiming that the judgments in Case Nos. 29089 and 29090 did not conform to the trial court’s pronounced sentence, and as a result, his sentences were illegal. The trial court treated the Motion as a motion to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1. The court determined that the Motion failed to raise a colorable claim and summarily dismissed the Motion. Discerning no error, we affirm.

The Defendant, Bobby Gene Carney, appeals the trial court’s partial revocation of his probation, arguing that the trial court abused its discretion in revoking his probation and ordering him to complete inpatient drug treatment based on a single instance of what were only technical violations. Based on our review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Petitioner, Kenneth Barnett, appeals from the Knox County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief related to his convictions for six counts of aggravated burglary, six counts of theft, and two counts of unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. Petitioner argues that the post-conviction court erred in denying relief based upon his claims that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because trial counsel failed to (1) investigate or seek testing of Petitioner’s blood, urine, and cigarettes; (2) file a motion to suppress Petitioner’s confession; and (3) adequately cross-examine law enforcement witnesses regarding the credibility of the confession and chain of custody issues with a gun magazine. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

This is an appeal of a divorce case. Although we affirm in part and reverse in part, we also vacate several aspects of the trial court’s judgment for the reasons stated herein and remand for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.