Nashville District Attorney General Glenn Funk this week issued nine indictments against deputies of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office in connection with the death of Gershun Freeman, the Commercial Appeal reports. Two of the officers were charged with aggravated assault and second-degree murder. Seven officers were charged with aggravated assault resulting in death. Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who has questioned Funk’s investigation, criticized the indictments saying, “…no actions by any Shelby County Sheriff’s Office employee caused Mr. Freeman’s death." The Nashville DA's office was chosen by a panel of district attorneys to run the investigation after Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy recused himself from the case. Freeman was arrested in October 2022 after being accused of attacking, threatening and kidnapping his girlfriend. Memphis attorney Jake Brown and civil rights attorney Ben Crump filed a wrongful death suit against the county in April.

Social justice activist, playwright, performer and lawyer Irma Herrera was the featured performer at the non-profit Tennessee Justice for our Neighbors' (TNJFON) fundraiser Thursday in Nashville. Her performance and interview will also be featured on the organization's Oye Vecino podcast, hosted by TNJFON staff attorney Alvaro Manrique Barrenechea. Since its founding in 2008, TNJFON has assisted thousands of low-income clients in a variety of immigration matters, with a focus on individuals who are eligible for humanitarian forms of relief. Herrera earlier this year performed her one-woman show, "Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name?" at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Thirty law students from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law met with members of the TBA YLD Board today. Board members Brande Boyd, Patrick Morris and Jennifer Sneed joined YLD President Quinton Thompson in an interactive panel to discuss the many benefits of getting involved with the TBA. Students were encouraged to apply for the award-winning Diversity Leadership Institute which begins in January and to attend CLEs which are available to them at no cost with their free law school membership.

Tennessee's Finance and Administration Commissioner Jim Bryson reported state revenues for August came in $39.4 million less than estimated and $1.7 million lower than the same month a year ago, reports Tennessee Lookout. The 0.11% drop was mostly due to a decrease in franchise and excise tax collections, according to Bryson. Sales taxes were $25.4 million higher than estimated for August. But the state also provided a break on grocery sales taxes and a weekend-long sales tax holiday, much of which was part of a $400 million tax reduction set to include business tax breaks scheduled to kick in permanently next year. 

Tennessee Attorney General Skrmetti announced today that a $44.5 million settlement has been reached with K-VA-T Food Stores, known as Food City, over the grocery store chain’s opioid-related misconduct. Most of the settlement will go to Tennessee’s Opioid Abatement Fund to support efforts in addressing the opioid epidemic. Food City has agreed to ensure future compliance by providing additional training to pharmacy staff, updating their prescription-validation process and monitoring and reporting suspicious activity. Read the full press release.

A federal trial has been set for May 2024 for five former Memphis police officers charged with violating Tyre Nichols' civil rights, reports the Commercial Appeal. The officers were indicted in federal court on Sept. 12. They each face charges of depriving Nichols of his right to be "free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer," deliberate indifference to Nichols' medical needs, tampering with evidence and intentionally providing false and misleading information. The maximum sentence the five former officers face is life in prison. There is no parole in the federal system. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee elected not to pursue the death penalty for the case.

The Athens City Council approved a motion earlier this week allowing its members to begin carrying concealed firearms during council meetings, reports the Tennessean. Vice Mayor Larry Eaton promoted the measure over concerns for his personal safety. The motion would only allow for council members to carry concealed weapons who have a permit and would not include city residents attending meetings. Athens, the county seat of McMinn County, is located 60 miles south of Knoxville and has 14,000 residents.

Franklin alderman and mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson said yesterday on her Instagram account that she had been arrested and pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution in Dallas in the mid-1990s, the Tennessean reports. In the video, Hanson recalled that while attending Southern Methodist University, she took a job answering phones for a "modeling and entertainment casting company.” Hanson said she did not know the company was running an escort service until her arrest. The revelation of her arrest is the latest controversy for Hanson, who earlier this month faced a NewsChannel 5 investigation that reported on a group of women who said Hanson had used their social media posts to falsely claim they were supporting her mayoral campaign.

The Authors Guild filed a suit in a Manhattan federal court yesterday on behalf of prominent American writers including John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen and "Game of Thrones" novelist George R.R. Martin, accusing OpenAI of unlawfully training its popular artificial intelligence based chatbot on their works, reports Reuters. The class-action lawsuit joins several others made by creative artists and source-code owners against generative AI providers. Similar lawsuits are pending against Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Stability AI over the data used to train their AI systems. OpenAI and other AI defendants claim their use of training data scraped from the internet qualifies as fair use under U.S. copyright law.

The New York State Bar Association announced yesterday a guide for legally maintaining and increasing the number of law students, judges and attorneys from groups that have traditionally been underrepresented within the legal profession, reports Reuters. The New York Bar's Task Force on Advancing Diversity recommended that law schools move away from standardized testing and prioritizing grade-point averages in their admissions process. The bar suggested schools should consider a broader range of criteria to help identify strong candidates. The report also suggested schools increase their outreach to prospective applicants and ensure their marketing materials signal that diverse candidates are welcome.