Tennessee

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18976129

A second former Memphis police officer changed his plea to guilty on Friday in connection to alleged civil rights violations that ended in the beating death of Tyre Nichols.

A change of plea for former officer Emmitt Martin was entered in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Mark Norris, records showed.

Back in November, another former Memphis officer, Desmond Mills Jr., changed his plea to guilty to federal charges of excessive force and obstruction of justice. The defendant agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and face up to 15 years behind bars.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27534898

The principal’s action was the result of a new state law that had gone into effect just months earlier, heightening penalties for students who make threats at school. Passed after a former student shot and killed six people at The Covenant School in Nashville, the law requires students to be expelled for at least a year if they threaten mass violence on school property, making it a zero-tolerance offense.

Tennessee lawmakers claimed that ramping up punishments for threats would help prevent serious acts of violence. “What we’re really doing is sending a message that says ‘Hey, this is not a joke, this is not a joking matter, so don’t do this,’” state Sen. Jon Lundberg, a co-sponsor of the legislation, told a Chattanooga news station a week and a half after the law went into effect.

Tennessee school officials have used the law to expel students for mildly disruptive behavior, according to advocates and lawyers across the state who spoke with ProPublica. (In Tennessee and a number of other states, expulsions aren’t necessarily permanent.) Some students have been expelled even when officials themselves determined that the threat was not credible. Lawmakers did put a new fix in place in May that limits expulsions to students who make “valid” threats of mass violence. But that still leaves it up to administrators to determine which threats are valid.

In some cases last school year, administrators handed off the responsibility of dealing with minor incidents to law enforcement. As a result, the type of misbehavior that would normally result in a scolding or brief suspension has led to children being not just expelled but also arrested, charged and placed in juvenile detention, according to juvenile defense lawyers and a recent lawsuit.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27137940

A mother whose son was having a seizure in his Tennessee apartment said in a federal lawsuit that police and paramedics subjected the 23-year-old to “inhumane acts of violence” instead of treating him, then covered up their use of deadly force.

The death of Austin Hunter Turner was one of more than 1,000 nationally that an investigation led by The Associated Press identified as happening after police officers used physical force or weapons that were supposed to stop, but not kill, people.

The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court, came after AP reporters shared police body-camera video they had unearthed with Turner’s parents, who didn’t know it existed. That footage made the family doubt the official conclusion that a drug overdose killed their son.

Citing the AP’s reporting and many of the details it disclosed, the lawsuit focused on how officers’ own video contradicted the police version of what happened inside Turner’s small apartment in the northeastern Tennessee city of Bristol.

Driving is an essential part of life in most parts of Tennessee. And if you don’t speak English — or a handful of other languages — getting a driver’s license can be difficult. That’s why a coalition of Tennessee-based immigrant rights groups is filing a federal complaint against the state.

The Our State, Our Languages Coalition alleges that the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security and Driver Services Division fail to provide sufficient language access to the driver’s exam, violating civil rights law.

At the core of the coalition’s complaint is guidance which requires agencies that receive federal funds to provide meaningful access to their services. Federal guidance states agencies should provide translation or interpretation if at least 1,000 people or 5% of the population have limited English proficiency. In Tennessee, that would include Arabic, Chinese, Somali, Kurdish, and more, said the coalition.

Tennessee’s written driving test is already offered in Spanish, German, Japanese and Korean. However, most of those language options are linked to auto manufacturers moving to the state. The road test is offered only in English.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18561678

For Roderick Givens, a radiation oncologist, the expansion of Medicaid isn’t just a policy issue. He practices medicine in a rural area in the Mississippi Delta and he sees daily how Medicaid coverage could help his uninsured patients.

“I can’t tell you the number of patients who I see who come in with advanced disease, who have full-time jobs,” Givens said. “They haven’t seen a physician in years. They can’t afford it. They don’t have coverage.”

This spring, the Mississippi Legislature considered but ultimately failed to expand Medicaid, which would have extended coverage to around 200,000 low-income residents. Mississippi is one of 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, the state and federal health insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities.

Seven of those states are in the South. But as more conservative-leaning states like North Carolina adopt it, the drumbeat of support, as one Southern state lawmaker put it, grows louder.

Advocates for expanding Medicaid say opposition is largely being driven by political polarization, rather than cost concerns.

Starting July 1, a new law on modified trucks and cars could mean fines for certain drivers.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee in March signed legislation banning a modification known commonly as a “Carolina squat,” which refers to cars and trucks with front ends raised to sit higher off the ground than the backs of vehicles, so that the bodies of the vehicles are no longer parallel to the ground.

Former state Rep. Scotty Campbell is suing the state Legislature’s top administrator, saying he was forced out amid a workplace harassment complaint filed by an intern in 2023.

Campbell, an East Tennessee Republican, filed a lawsuit Tuesday saying he was “forced to resign upon threat of being expelled – that day – and losing his health insurance” by House Republican Caucus Chairman Jeremy Faison. The filing also says Faison was believed to be conspiring with others to keep the media from finding out a similar complaint had been filed against him.

The former lawmaker filed a public records petition Tuesday in Davidson County Circuit Court against Connie Ridley, director of Legislative Administration, court documents show. The filing contends Ridley and others refused to disclose state records Campbell requested and is entitled to receive under state law.

Campbell resigned April 20 after a subcommittee investigation found he sexually harassed an intern.

Around noon that day, Campbell told the Tennessee Lookout he would not step away from the Legislature even though the Workplace Discrimination & Harassment Subcommittee determined he violated state policy. The subcommittee’s work was done secretly, and members were not allowed to comment on their deliberation.

Two hours later, though, he had vacated the Capitol complex, including the Cordell Hull Building where legislators’ offices are located.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton and House Majority Leader William Lamberth that night denied telling Campbell to leave, but Faison declined to say anything when asked by the Tennessee Lookout.

In the last three years, TVA has built, approved, or proposed eight methane gas plants. This massive, multi-billion-dollar gas spending spree – which is the largest fossil fuel buildout in the country – will worsen the impacts of climate change and force families across the region and customers to pay expensive fossil fuel prices for decades to come. The more than 150 miles of proposed gas pipelines that will accompany the new plants will cut through parts of Middle and East Tennessee, putting dozens of communities, waterways, and ecosystems at risk.

U.S. Rep Andy Ogles has paid a $5,750 civil penalty for multiple campaign finance violations incurred during the 2021-2022 election cycle, an FEC spokesperson confirmed. The commission agreed to the fine in early October after assessing Ogles’ campaign with multiple penalties for missing and late-filed reports, illegal contributions and insufficient reporting documents.

The Ogles campaign blamed its compliance issues on “internal miscommunication,” according to the publicly released settlement terms. In addition to the fine, Ogles’ campaign has until Jan. 2 to set up a specific tracking and reporting process with the FEC and must undergo additional training with the FEC by October.

An FEC audit from March found more than 10 campaign finance violations from Ogles’ 2022 campaign. The report details $90,000 in unreported receipts from October 2022 and an undisclosed $50,000 transfer between political committees. Letters from the FEC also name former Ogles treasurer Lee Beaman and Thomas Datwyler, a Wisconsin-based compliance consultant associated with multiple instances of improper bookkeeping for Republican candidates across the country.

Elected mayor of Maury County in 2018, Ogles built a reputation among Tennessee’s far right by opposing COVID precautions and gun control. Last year, Ogles won the Republican nomination for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District over former speaker of the Tennessee House Beth Harwell and retired National Guard Brig. Gen. Kurt Winstead, both viewed as moderate alternatives to Ogles. In November 2022, he comfortably beat Democratic state Sen. Heidi Campbell, for the seat. The district previously contained all of Davidson County and was represented by centrist Democrat Jim Cooper before state lawmakers split up Nashville into three congressional districts.

Many of the professional and personal details shared by Ogles during his campaign were reported by NewsChannel5’s Phil Williams to be exaggerations and embellishments soon after he was sworn in as a congressman, prompting comparisons between Ogles and now-ousted GOP Rep. George Santos.

Ogles’ office did not respond to a request for comment.