Soddy Daisy Judge Marty Lasley last night dismissed all charges against Hugo Garcia Padilla after Nashville Assistant District Attorney Tammy Meade said she was "comfortable and confident" that Padilla was not the man who fired two shots toward a pregnant female, Chattanoogan.com reports. Meade had been brought into the case after Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston recused himself. Officials now say that an arrest warrant has been issued for Hugo Garcia Robles. Meade said the two men with similar names live near one another and drive similar vehicles. Witnesses also gave a "very vague description" of the shooter, which contributed to the mix up. The case garnered statewide attention when Pinkston accused his campaign opponent Coty Wamp of witness tampering. Wamp had been arguing that Padilla was innocent of the charges.

University of Memphis Law School Dean Kate Schaffzin joined fellow deans from across the country on Friday for a virtual White House event celebrating schools that responded to the attorney general’s call to action to address the pandemic’s housing and eviction crisis. During the event, the White House announced that response to the call for action was “swift and wide.” Over the course of five months, more than 2,100 law students spent 81,000 hours serving 10,000 households. Memphis Law and Vanderbilt University Law School were among the 99 law schools that joined the effort. Read more about the initiative and the specific activities Memphis Law undertook to reduce evictions in its community. Watch a replay of the event on YouTube.

In a private ceremony yesterday, Jill E. McCook took her oath of office and became the newest U.S. magistrate judge in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the Chattanoogan reports. She succeeds Magistrate Judge H. Bruce Guyton, who retired after serving the court since 2003. McCook has worked as an attorney for the Tennessee Valley Authority for the past four years. Previously, she was in private practice, served as a law clerk to District Judge Thomas A. Varlan, and was an adjunct professor in legal process at the University of Tennessee College of Law. McCook is a TBA member and a 2018 graduate of the TBA Leadership Law program. A public investiture will take place in the coming months.

Three attorneys with significant Metro Government experience have joined Nashville’s Waller Lansden Dortch and Davis, the Nashville Post reports. Doug Sloan, Jon Cooper and Quan Poole left Spencer Fane Bone McAllester to join with Waller’s real estate team where they will focus on land use and zoning, corporate relocation and expansion and public-private partnerships. Cooper is a former head of the Metro Council office and Metro legal director. Sloan was previously a Metro attorney, executive director of the Metro Planning Department and chief legal officer at the Nashville International Airport. Poole was from 2017-2020 a Metro attorney working with the city's board of zoning appeals, health department and codes department.

Gov. Bill Lee delivered his fourth annual State of the State address last night, promising to boost funding for education, infrastructure projects and law enforcement, the Associated Press reports. Lee outlined a $52.5 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2022-2023, up nearly 20% from last year’s proposal. The budget gives an additional $125 million to boosting teacher salaries, $356 million for a new multi-agency law enforcement training academy, $150 million to create a violent crime intervention grant and funding to hire 100 more state troopers. An additional $623 million has been allocated for road projects and $200 million has been set aside to help Tennessee’s Colleges of Applied Technology, designed to double the state’s skilled workforce by 2026. Read Lee’s entire address at the Tennessee Journal.

Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly today appointed City Councilman Anthony Byrd as city court clerk, the Chattanoogan reports. Byrd served more than 20 years at the Hamilton County Criminal Court Clerk’s Office, resigning in 2017 to join the city council where he represented residents in District 8. Byrd chaired the council’s Public Safety Committee as well as the Economic and Community Development Committee.  

Travis Reinking, who fatally shot four people at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, WPLN reports. Reinking’s attorney, Luke Evans, told jurors this week that his client was “driven by delusions” about the singer Taylor Swift and aliens, adding that Reinking thought he was being commanded by God the night of the crime. “What the proof is going to show in this case is that Travis Reinking is severely mentally ill,” Evans said. But Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman argued that Reinking’s actions were calculated, pointing to his purchase of extra magazines days before the shooting and how he chose a parking spot at the Waffle House that allowed him to see everyone inside before the shooting began. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan has ruled that former death row inmate Pervis Payne will serve his two life sentences concurrently, making him eligible for parole in five years, the Commercial Appeal reports. Payne was removed from death row after the Shelby County District Attorney’s office dropped its pursuit of the death penalty following a state expert’s assessment that Payne has an intellectual disability. District Attorney General Amy Weirich is seeking to appeal Skahan’s ruling. Weirich said the new statute that “removed the one-year statute of limitations on claims of intellectual disability” doesn’t “authorize changing the original trial judge’s ruling that multiple sentences in the case should be consecutive.” Payne’s attorney, federal public defender Kelley Henry, said she and her legal team will continue to investigate the case in hopes of exonerating Payne.

The Tennessee Supreme Court yesterday named Michele Wojciechowski as the new executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education. Wojciechowski is a graduate of the Nashville School of Law (NSL). She held a variety of management positions during a 13-year career at the Tennessean newspaper and from 2012 to 2016 was director of communications for the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). Most recently, Wojciechowski served as communications director at NSL, where she implemented a major curriculum overhaul, revived NSL’s Continuing Legal Education program and more than doubled job listings for students and alumni by revamping the career development process. Wojciechowski will replace former Executive Director Judy Bond-McKissack, who recently announced her retirement. Read more from the AOC.

In a series of blog posts this month, the Tennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims looks back at decisions from 2021. The first summary looks at opinions from the Tennessee Supreme Court Special Workers’ Compensation Panel. The second installment looks at Appeals Board opinions involving course and scope, medical causation and reasonable necessity, and the Medical Impairment Rating Registry. Finally, the third post covers the remainder of the opinions on a range of issues.