Law & Courts

CINCINNATI — On October 16 a Sixth Circuit panel of Judges McKeague, Thapar and Murphy granted the Tennessee Valley Authority's emergency motion for a stay pending appeal in Appalachian Voices v. TVA, No. 26-5836. The ruling lets TVA keep building its multibillion-dollar gas-fired plant to replace the aging coal plant at Kingston, Tennessee. Judge Curtis Collier of the Eastern District of Tennessee had vacated TVA's approval of the plant under the National Environmental Policy Act. The suit was brought by Appalachian Voices, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club. Writing for the panel, Judge Murphy said TVA will likely win on three points. The statutory phrase "range of alternatives" does not require two qualifying options when only one exists. A gas-supply precedent agreement did not lock TVA into the plant in advance. Vacating the approval was likely the wrong remedy. Construction began in 2024, with completion aimed at 2028. The merits appeal continues.

WASHINGTON — Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas have filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review John Eastman's disbarment in California. Eastman was a key figure in efforts to challenge the 2020 election result. The senators argue that political activists turned the bar disciplinary process into a weapon, and that ideological discipline could deter lawyers from taking unpopular clients. Seventeen current and former Trump attorneys, including Sidney Powell and Ed Martin, filed a separate supporting brief. The justices are scheduled to consider Eastman's petition at the November 6 conference. Bloomberg Law notes that the Court has reversed disbarments before but rarely intervenes in state bar proceedings. A California State Bar panel had earlier rejected Eastman's free-speech defense. Whether the Court takes the case has not been decided.

MEMPHIS — The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has reversed the voluntary manslaughter conviction of Samuel Ward Jr. in the shooting death of Paris Lee, a transgender woman, in Shelby County. That is according to a report by Truthout, which credits a local journalist with breaking the story; the opinion itself was not independently reviewed. A jury convicted Ward in May 2025 after rejecting his self-defense claim. The three-judge panel found the trial judge erred by barring the defense from disclosing Lee's sex assigned at birth. It held that this misled the jury and could be relevant to self-defense and provocation. The state had conceded relevance only if the proof showed it caused the altercation. It argued that Lee was armed and the evidence contradicted Ward's account. Advocates, including Memphis group My Sistah's House, criticized the ruling. Tennessee has not banned the so-called LGBTQ panic defense, which 20 states have. The case returns for retrial.