U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and recently retired justice Stephen Breyer have been named honorary co-chairmen of a nonpartisan group devoted to educating the public about the Constitution. The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia said the pair will be spokesmen for civics education and civility in politics. The justices' decision to work together "is especially meaningful in this polarized time," said Jeffrey Rosen, the center's president. At the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago earlier this month, Breyer said, "The nonpartisan work of the National Constitution Center is essential, and I look forward to working with Justice Gorsuch to promote civil dialogue and debate." Read more from the center.

Two former Pennsylvania judges convicted of orchestrating a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks have been ordered to pay more than $200 million to the hundreds of victims impacted by the scandal, the Associated Press reports. Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan were convicted in what came to be known as the “kids-for-cash” scandal. The judges shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella ordered children as young as eight to detention for petty theft, jaywalking, truancy, smoking on school grounds and other minor infractions. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out some 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 kids after the scheme was uncovered. The two must pay $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in the long-running civil suit.

According to the ABA Journal, Lex Machina’s 2022 Employment Litigation Report shows a total of $1.17 billion in damages were awarded in 1,016 employment cases in 2021—the highest amount of damages in nearly a decade. The report focuses on the three-year period from 2019 to 2021, examining cases that were filed under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Additional data shows that 73% of employment cases in district courts settled between 2019 and 2021, while only 10% of claim defendants and 3% of claimants won. In the appellate courts, appellees won in 51% of employment cases during the three-year period. Appellants won in 13% of cases, while 15% of cases settled. Read highlights from the report.

The Tennessee Department of Health this week appointed two Nashville attorneys to serve as its chief of staff and general counsel, the Nashville Post reports. Elizabeth Foy will serve as the department’s chief of staff. Foy served as legislative liaison for the department since 2021 and was appointed assistant commissioner earlier this year. She also served as an assistant district attorney in Nashville for more than 10 years. The department also appointed Mary Katherine Bratton as general counsel. Bratton originally started with TDH as assistant general counsel in 2012, and most recently served in the office of general counsel at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

The American Bar Association has appointed Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP) Executive Director Buddy Stockwell to its Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP). CoLAP is instrumental in supporting all state LAPs in the development and delivery of top-tier clinical support and monitoring services to judges, lawyers, and law students who are confronting alcoholism, substance use disorders, or any other type of mental health issue such as depression. The Tennessee Supreme Court appointed Stockwell as TLAP executive director in July 2020. Now into his 40th year of recovery from alcoholism, Stockwell has been personally involved in lawyer assistance for 30 years.

Knox County Chancellors John F. Weaver and Christopher D. Heagerty and Chancellor-elect Richard B. Armstrong have appointed J. Scott Griswold as the court’s clerk and master. He will be sworn in on Aug. 31, and he will succeed Howard G. Hogan, who is retiring after 24 years of service. Griswold is currently a shareholder with Long, Ragsdale & Waters. He previously was a law clerk for then Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice William M. Barker. Read more in a release from the firm.

Saying the public has a “strong interest” in seeing the actions of federal agents during a 2018 raid on a slaughterhouse in Grainger County, U.S. Magistrate Chris Steger rejected an attempt by the agents to keep a video of the raid from being released. He has ordered it be released by Friday. Tennessee Lookout and Paul McAdoo with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press had filed for the video to be unsealed. According to news source, the video shows the U.S. government engaged in excessive force during the raid, including a segment where one agent placed his boot on the neck of a worker who was facedown with his hands behind his back.

A three-judge panel of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals ruled yesterday that Confederate memorabilia in a Giles County courthouse is not “inherently prejudicial” for jurors who deliberate cases there. The jury room, which was decorated by the United Daughters of Confederacy, features a Confederate flag, portraits of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. John C. Brown, and other memorabilia. The case was brought by Barry Jamal Martin, who challenged his conviction on drug charges based on the memorabilia. According to Tennessee Lookout, the ruling directly contradicts a prior decision by another panel of the court that did vacate a conviction based on the jury’s exposure to the memorabilia. This panel said in a footnote that it was not bound by the previous decision. Giles County leaders previously voted to move the memorabilia to a museum but had not completed that task before Martin was tried.

A coalition of attorneys general has reached an agreement in principle with opioid maker Endo International that will provide up to $450 million to participating states and local governments, ban promotion of opioids and require the company to turn over millions of documents for a public online archive, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III announced today. Endo, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, was accused by the group of boosting its opioid sales by using deceptive marketing that downplayed the risk of addiction and overstated the benefits. Slatery said that Endo’s tactics in Tennessee, “were especially profitable for them and devasting for us.” The settlement is contingent on final documentation and Bankruptcy Court approval.

Knoxville lawyer Stephen Ross Johnson recently was sworn in for a two-year term as treasurer of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Johnson is a criminal defense trial and appellate attorney with Ritchie, Davies, Johnson & Stovall. He is a past chair of the TBA’s Criminal Justice Section and served as the associate general counsel for the association. He is also a past president of the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Hamilton Burnett American Inn of Court and the Tennessee Innocence Project. For many years, he was an adjunct professor and director of the Innocence and Wrongful Convictions Clinic at the University of Tennessee College of Law. Read more in a release from his firm.