Davidson County Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal issued the order Monday as part of a lawsuit filed by Democratic state and local officials who contend that the Republican governor cannot deploy the Tennessee National Guard for civil unrest unless there is rebellion or invasion. Even then, they argue, it would require a request by local officials amid a “breakdown of law and order” and action by Tennessee lawmakers, according to state laws cited by the plaintiffs.

The judge concluded that the governor’s power as commander-in-chief of the National Guard “is not unfettered.”

“There is no rebellion or invasion currently taking place in Memphis,” the judge wrote.

However, the judge put the order on hold for at least five days, so that the government has time to file an “immediate application for permission to appeal,” without providing her reasoning for that timeline.

In a statement Tuesday, Lee spokesperson Elizabeth Lane Johnson said the state will appeal and Guard troops will remain in place during the appeal, per the judge’s order.

Lee has not issued a specific written order deploying the troops, the judge said, adding that the only document in the court record is a press release saying the Guard would be sent to Memphis.

In the statement, Lee’s spokesperson said Memphis is experiencing “a violent crime emergency that the state must address.”

“There’s no question these public safety efforts must continue,” Johnson said.

For years, Memphis has dealt with high violent crime, including assaults, carjackings and homicides. While this year’s statistics show improvement in several categories, including murders, many acknowledge that violence remains a problem.

Trump announced in September that the National Guard would be deployed to combat crime in Memphis alongside authorities from a slew of federal agencies as part of the so-called Memphis Safe Task Force. The task force, which includes hundreds of personnel attached to about 30 federal and state law enforcement agencies and Memphis police, has made more than 2,500 arrests since it began operating in late September.

Troops that arrived on Oct. 10 have been patrolling neighborhoods and commercial areas of Memphis, including near the iconic Pyramid in downtown, wearing camouflage and protective vests that say “military police,” with guns in holsters. Guard members have no power to make arrests or conduct searches.

City of Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, said he never requested that the Guard come to his city. But after Trump made the announcement and Lee agreed, Young, who is not involved in the lawsuit, and others have said they wanted the task force to focus on targeting violent offenders.

Lee has said the National Guard would “play a critical support role” for local law enforcement. Moskal, the judge, found that “the National Guard’s limited role as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force is to serve a support and deterrence function.”

“That role does not appear to be critical to the Memphis Safe Task Force’s mission of fighting violent crime,” she wrote.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti also confirmed an appeal is coming, saying the case presents legal questions that have ramifications “for all Tennesseans for centuries to come.”

The plaintiffs include Lee Harris, the mayor of Shelby County, where Memphis is located. Harris argues that the Guard’s presence is being used to cause fear in residents, and it damages the city’s reputation.

As of Nov. 13, about 140 to 180 Guard personnel were on the ground, according to the Memphis Police Department. The total will soon increase to about 350 troops, the department said, but it was not immediately clear if the judge’s order will affect those numbers.

At least nine armed Guard members began their patrol at the Bass Pro Shops located at the Pyramid, an iconic landmark in Memphis, and a nearby tourist welcome center along the Mississippi River. Wearing Guard fatigues and protective vests labeled “military police,” they were being escorted by a local police officer and posed for photos with visitors.

It was unclear how many Guard members were on the ground or were expected to arrive later.

Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, said he never requested that the Guard come to Memphis. But after President Donald Trump made the Sept. 15 announcement and Republican Gov. Bill Lee agreed, Young and others said they wanted the task force to focus on targeting violent offenders rather than use their presence to scare, harass or intimidate the general public.

Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said Wednesday she hoped Guard personnel would help direct traffic and have a presence in “retail corridors,” but not be used to operate checkpoints or anything similar.

Lee previously said troops would not make arrests and would not be armed unless local law enforcement officials request it.

For years, Memphis, whose population exceeds 600,000, has dealt with high violent crime, including assaults, carjackings and homicides. While this year’s statistics show improvement in several categories, including murders, many acknowledge that violence remains a problem.

Federal officials say hundreds of arrests and more than 2,800 traffic citations have been made since the task force began operating in Memphis on Sept. 29. Arrest categories include active warrants, drugs, firearms and sex offenses, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Four arrests have been made on homicide charges, the Marshals Service said.

Some residents said the Guard is not what Memphis needs.

“Totally useless, worthless, not called for because the money that they’re gonna spend on that — if they would give it to us to let us do improvements in our city,” said Loretta Davis, who emphasized that young people need more options.

An ongoing legal battle

Friday’s development comes day after a federal judge in Illinois blocked deployment of troops in the Chicago area for at least two weeks.

The on-again, off-again deployments stem from a political and legal battle over Trump’s push to send the Guard to several U.S. cities. His administration claims crime is rampant in those cities, despite statistics not always supporting that.

If a president invokes the Insurrection Act, they can dispatch active duty military in states that fail to put down an insurrection or defy federal law, but the judge in Chicago said she found no substantial evidence that a “danger of rebellion” is brewing in Illinois during Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The court order offered a victory for Democratic officials who lead the state and city and who have called the deployments unnecessary and illegal.

“The court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.

The order in Illinois is set to expire Oct. 23 at 11:59 p.m. U.S. District Judge April Perry set an Oct. 22 hearing to determine if it should be extended for another 14 days.

It wasn’t clear what the 500 Guard members from Texas and Illinois would do next. They were mostly based at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. A small number were sent to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Broadview, which for weeks has been home to occasional clashes between protesters and federal agents.

The Defense Department declined to comment. The troops had been activated for 60 days.

U.S. Justice Department lawyer Eric Hamilton told the judge that the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government law enforcers in the field, not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”

Deployment in Portland remains on hold

A federal appeals court heard arguments Thursday over whether Trump had the authority to take control of 200 Oregon Guard troops. The president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have been small nightly protests outside an ICE building.

A judge last Sunday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the move. Trump had mobilized California troops for Portland just hours after the judge first blocked him from using Oregon’s Guard.

Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor signed a court filing in support of the legal challenge by California and Oregon. Twenty others, led by Iowa, backed the Trump administration.

Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

The officials met with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican who has supported the project, before touring a staging area for the Memphis Safe Task Force and then speaking to a group of federal, state and local law enforcement officers and Tennessee National Guard members.

Miller called the task force an “all of government, unlimited support operation” that would make the city “safer than any of you could ever possibly imagine.” He predicted that “businesses and investment are going to pour in, and Memphis will be richer than ever before.”

“We’re not here to second guess you,” Hegseth told them. “We’re here to have your back — to unleash you to do your jobs so you come home safely.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents Memphis in Congress, said he was disappointed to learn about the visit in the media. In a letter to Hegseth and Bondi, he urged them to be more collaborative and expressed concern about the “wartime rhetoric” coming from the Trump administration.

“Memphians are not enemies; they are Americans,” Cohen said. “They are entitled to constitutional rights, not their government working to ‘intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill’ them. We are not a training ground or target practice.”

The task force is part of a larger effort by Trump to use National Guard troops and surge federal law enforcement in cities, particularly ones controlled by Democrats. Following troop deployments in the District of Columbia and Los Angeles, he referred to Portland, Oregon, as “war-ravaged” and threatened apocalyptic force in Chicago. Speaking Tuesday to U.S. military leaders in Virginia, Trump proposed using cities as training grounds for the armed forces.

Arrests begin in Memphis

Bondi said in a social media post earlier in the day that the task force has made more than 50 arrests over a two-day period. More than 200 officers have been deputized, including personnel from immigration and drug enforcement. They are serving criminal arrest warrants and teaming with state agencies on traffic stops.

Memphis should expect to see an increase in warrant enforcement, especially for violent criminals, Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Ryan Guay said in an email. The Marshals Service will release periodic updates that include arrest numbers, types of charges and participating agencies, he said.

Tennessee National Guard troops will help Memphis Police, Lee has said, but it is unclear how soon that will begin. Lee does not expect more than 150 National Guard members to be sent to Memphis. The city has said there will be no tanks, and the governor said troops will not make arrests or be armed unless local authorities request it.

Memphis has experienced high numbers of violent crimes such as carjackings and homicides in recent years, but both Democratic and Republican officials have noted decreases this year in some crime categories.

Opponents of the deployment say it is an unnecessary federal occupation of a majority-Black city that instead needs more funding to address poverty and other drivers of crime. Supporters see it as a welcomed infusion of law enforcement for a city that still needs help battling violence.

Troops reporting for duty in Oregon

Across the country in Oregon, meanwhile, members of that state’s National Guard reported for duty Wednesday. The troops were “preparing to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel who are performing federal functions, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property in Oregon,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

It could be several days before they are deployed to federal buildings, the Oregon Military Department’s director for government and legislative affairs, Russell Gibson, told state lawmakers Tuesday. The troops will come from a military police company and an infantry company, he said.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield is attempting to block the deployment, with a hearing in the case scheduled for Friday.

Immigration arrests in Chicago

Federal agents have conducted hundreds of immigration arrests in Chicago since last month, primarily through traffic stops and targeting day laborers and homes in predominantly Latino and immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.

At least 37 people were arrested early Tuesday at an apartment building in the predominantly Black South Shore neighborhood. The location was chosen due to alleged connections to the Tren de Aragua gang, the Department of Homeland Security said.

Immigrant rights activists called it further escalation of an operation that has seen armed Border Patrol agents make arrests at famous downtown landmarks. Illinois leaders say they are also bracing for the administration to dispatch military troops.

Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee. Associated Press writers Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed.

The guard and the police sergeant testified during a preliminary hearing for Karl P. Loucks, who was arrested May 31 on a first-degree murder charge in the killing of Shaun Rhea, a homeless man who lived in downtown Memphis. After hearing their testimony, Shelby County Judge Bill Anderson said there was enough evidence to present the case to a grand jury for indictment.

Loucks, 41, is being held without bond on the murder charge. Loucks’ lawyer has suggested that he acted in self-defense. Loucks also is charged with aggravated assault after police said he cut another homeless man twice with a knife in the days before Rhea was shot. Loucks has not entered a plea in either case.

Loucks attacked Rhea in the early morning hours of May 31 in downtown Memphis, police said in an affidavit. Tony Perry, a security guard at a downtown Memphis hotel, testified that he saw Loucks use pepper spray on Rhea while he was sleeping. Loucks also pepper-sprayed other homeless people that same night, Perry said.

After he was pepper-sprayed, Rhea confronted Loucks, asking why Loucks did it and “calling him the b-word,” Perry said. Loucks took out a knife, and Rhea picked up an electric scooter that was nearby and threw it at Loucks. He missed.

“He was angry,” Perry said of Rhea, adding that Rhea did not attempt to get physical with Loucks.

Loucks then entered his apartment building, but he returned shortly afterward carrying an AR-style rifle under an orange jacket, Perry testified.

“Next thing you know, I heard gunshots,” said Perry, who testified that he turned and ran as several shots were fired.

Rhea, who did not have a gun, was struck in the back, Memphis police Sgt. Jeremy Cline testified. Rhea died at a hospital. Six bullet casings were found at the scene of the shooting, Cline said.

Police were called, and they found the rifle and the jacket in Loucks’ apartment, Cline said. During a police interview after his arrest, Loucks said he acted in self-defense after Rhea confronted him, Cline said.

Cline said he asked Loucks why he did not call police.

“He said he didn’t do it because he felt he was being threatened,” the police sergeant said.

During the hearing, Cline showed a video of the shooting to the judge, the defense lawyer, the prosecutor and Loucks. Relatives and supporters of both Loucks and Rhea were in the courtroom, but they were not able to see the video.

Loucks was a health care specialist in the Army from September 2007 to August 2013, said Bryce S. Dubee, an Army public affairs spokesman. Loucks served in Afghanistan from March 2009 to March 2010 and left the Army with the rank of private first class.

Loucks was honorably discharged from the Army because he was disabled due to post-traumatic stress disorder, said his lawyer, Blake Ballin. Outside court, Ballin said he was working on arranging a psychological evaluation to determine if and how Loucks’ mental health played into the shooting.

“If somebody in Mr. Loucks’ situation, with his experience in the past, his experience in these events, felt reasonably that he was in fear for his life or his physical safety, then he may have been justified in acting the way he did,” Ballin said.

The hearing took place in a courtroom used for cases involving military veterans. Banners from branches of the military hang along the back wall of the courtroom.

Judge Anderson said he could not help but think that Loucks’ experience in the Army during wartime could be a factor in the case.

“Some cases don’t make any sense, any logical sense,” Anderson said. “This is one of them.”

Memphis police spokesperson officer Theresa Carlson said Tuesday that investigators are working to determine if Loucks has had other confrontations with homeless people, in addition to the stabbing that police said took place May 25.

Police, officials at Saint Francis Health System and others provided details about the victims of Wednesday’s shooting.

One of the doctors once worked for a pro basketball team, and the other was a huge college football fan. The receptionist supervisor cheered on her sons’ high school baseball team, and police said the fourth victim was an Army veteran who sacrificed his life for his wife during the shooting.

WILLIAM LOVE

Franklin, the police chief, said Love, 73, was found wounded in a second-floor exam room and taken to the hospital’s emergency room for treatment. He died there.

Although Love was a patient at the clinic where the shooting happened, he didn’t have an appointment that day but was instead accompanying another patient, said Tulsa Police Capt. Richard Meulenberg.

Love was a retired Army sergeant with 27 years of service, including one tour in the Vietnam War, the Tulsa Police Department said in a statement posted on Facebook. Love enjoyed traveling and spending time with his family, which included eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Love had taken his wife, Deborah, to the clinic the day of the shooting for her six-month checkup, said their daughter, Karen Denise Love. Deborah Love had back surgery in December.

They were in an examination room with one of Phillips’ assistants when the couple heard the commotion outside. When they realized it was gunshots, Karen Love said her father grabbed the door handle from inside the room.

“As they heard this guy going up and down the hall, they knew it was gunfire,” Karen Love said. “They thought it was someone just shooting people. My dad was trying to hold the door the best he could.”

The shooter walked past their room, but they heard him come back. He then started shooting through the sheetrock walls and through the door, striking William Love, she said.

Karen Love said her father was born in Georgia, a “poor, sharecroppers’ boy.”

“He was a red, white and blue guy, my daddy,” she said. “He was a good, stable human being.”

Before he was killed, Love had planned to travel with his wife, his daughter said. They enjoyed California, Wyoming and Georgia, Karen Love said.

DR. PRESTON PHILLIPS

Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin said Phillips performed back surgery on the gunman last month and was the primary target of the shooting. Phillips, 59, was found dead in a second-floor exam room.

Phillips was an orthopedic surgeon with an interest in spinal surgery and joint reconstruction, according to a profile on the hospital system’s website. He had served as lead physician for Tulsa’s WNBA team before the franchise moved out of state, according to the Tulsa World.

In addition to his medical degree, Phillips had advanced degrees in organic chemistry, pharmacology and theology.

Dr. Cliff Robertson, president and CEO of Saint Francis Health System, said Phillips was a dedicated caregiver who considered medicine his calling. Robertson said Phillips was a “consummate gentleman.”

“He was — he is — a man that we should all strive to emulate,” Robertson said. “The fact that some individual would go after Dr. Phillips is mind-blowing. He’s one of those folks that, you know, his clinic can not always be on time because he will spend every minute with patients that they need.”

Phillips graduated in 1990 from Harvard Medical School and completed his fellowship at the university-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“Tragically, this incident is the latest in a seemingly unending series of devastating shootings that serve as painful and recurring reminders that gun violence is a medical and public health crisis in this country,” Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley said Thursday in a statement.

In a statement, the J. Robert Gladden Orthopaedic Society said Phillips was one of its members. The Towson, Maryland-based group said its mission is to increase diversity within the orthopedic profession “and promote the highest quality musculoskeletal care for all people.”

The group called the shooting a “despicable act.”

DR. STEPHANIE HUSEN

According to the hospital system’s website, Husen, 48, focused on sports medicine. She graduated medical school in 2000 from Oklahoma State University and further trained at Greenville Memorial Hospital and the Steadman Hawkins Clinic of the Carolinas in South Carolina.

Robertson said Husen was “an incredible person.”

Husen’s ex-husband, John Reckenbeil, said Husen was a physical therapist when she broke her foot in a car accident in the late 1990s. As she was rehabilitating her injury, Husen made the decision to go to medical school and study orthopedics, Reckenbeil told The Associated Press.

Husen, who had two brothers, loved her family and enjoyed being a doctor, Reckenbeil said.

“That’s what is just so unacceptable,” Reckenbeil said. “She’s there doing her job … She loved helping people and she’s ripped from this planet doing what she loved to do.”

Husen grew up in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and was a big fan of Oklahoma Sooners football, Reckenbeil said.

“She was the greatest woman ever,” he said. “She was the best doctor, she was the best person, she was the best wife.”

Husen was cleaning out her house recently and sent him photos from their wedding of his late mother “out of the blue,” Reckenbeil said.

“That’s the type of woman she was,” Reckenbeil said.

Reckenbeil said Husen was often “the smartest person in the room, but she never let you know about it.”

AMANDA GLENN

Robertson said Glenn, 40, was a receptionist and served in a supervisory role.

The three employees were “the three best people in the entire world, the most committed to doing what they do every day and taking care of others. They didn’t deserve to die like that,” Robertson said.

The Charles Page High School baseball team said in a Facebook post that Glenn was a devoted wife, mother and friend.

“She was on our Booster Club Board and served the baseball boys and coaches selflessly. She was the biggest cheerleader for both of her sons and all of our boys!” the statement said. “Our baseball family is at a loss.”

Foody reported from Chicago. Williams reported from Detroit. Sainz reported from Memphis, Tennessee. Jill Zeman Bleed contributed from Little Rock, Arkansas. Associated Press researcher Randy Herschaft also contributed.

Volunteers continued cleanup efforts, scrubbing away graffiti and removing the debris of two days of protests. The demonstrations, like others nationwide, erupted after the death of George Floyd, a black man in handcuffs who pleaded for air as a white officer in Minnesota pressed a knee into his neck last week. They continued Monday evening with a peaceful protest outside the state Capitol in Nashville.

Inside the GOP-dominant Statehouse, black Democratic lawmakers spoke out against the violence, but also asked their Republican colleagues to not focus solely on the vandalism. Instead, they pleaded with their fellow members to understand what sparked the anger.

“I don’t want to walk around angry and in a controlled rage every day, but I want you to understand that if you dismiss their anger and avoid a solution, it will happen again,” said Rep. Vincent Dixie of Nashville.

On Monday evening, more than 60 National Guard troops at the state Capitol put down their riot shields at the request of peaceful protesters. Guardsmen had initially rushed to grab their shields and form a hard line to block the slowly moving crowd — who were singing and chanting — from advancing up the Capitol steps.

But the crowd remained calm, and Democratic lawmakers leaving the Capitol asked to be able to move past the line of guards to join the crowd. As the crowd continued to sing and call for justice for black Americans, slowly the shields began to drop even as Tennessee state troopers with batons in hand backed away.

The majority of the weekend arrests were made in Nashville, where fires were lit inside and outside the city’s historic courthouse. Thousands had peacefully rallied outside the state Capitol on Saturday, but demonstrations turned violent after darkness fell.

Meanwhile, 30 businesses were vandalized, including a handful of Nashville’s famous honky tonks on Broadway. A statue of a former state lawmaker and newspaper publisher Edward Carmack, who espoused racist views, was toppled. That statue was taken Monday to a state museum.

Police have since arrested Wesley Somers, 25, and accusing him of setting fire to the building. Law enforcement have asked the public for tips to find others also suspected of causing damage.

For the third night in a row, Mayor John Cooper announced Nashville would be under a curfew starting at 10 p.m. Monday and running until 6 a.m. curfew. That comes even though no major demonstrations or clashes between police and protesters took place the day before.

In Memphis, Mayor Jim Strickland also imposed a similar 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for most people, except essential workers and those experiencing a medical issue. The National Guard, which has been in Memphis working on the new coronavirus outbreak response, will be in the city to help local authorities.

Strickland said he was on a call this weekend with mayors and police chiefs from 40 cities and curfews were discussed.

“They really felt curfews were needed once there is property damage or some kind of violent act,” Strickland said. “We saw that last night.”

Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings said he has seen videos of protesters being arrested that are being used by activists to allege police are using excessive force.

“An arrest is never going to be pretty,” Rallings said. He later noted the department has a “very elaborate use of force policy” and the department will deal with officers who transgress that policy.

Rallings reported that 10 businesses have been damaged, three officers have been shot at, and 44 protesters have been arrested since Wednesday, when protests began in Memphis.

A protest march began Monday evening at the historic Clayborn Temple in downtown Memphis. The temple was the headquarters for the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike that brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city.

The demonstrations spreading across America were held around Tennessee over the weekend in response to the latest killings of black people by police.

Separate demonstrations were held in Knoxville, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, but no curfews have been set in place as of Monday.

At least 10 arrests were made in Chattanooga on Sunday.

According to a spokeswoman, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and Police Chief David Roddy “have agreed that, at this moment in time, instituting a curfew would be unnecessary and practically unenforceable.”

April Alley is the daughter of Sedley Alley, executed in 2006 for the murder two decades earlier of Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne Collins. Earlier this year, April Alley petitioned the court on behalf of her father’s estate to order DNA testing. The move came after investigators in a Missouri murder case contacted the Innocence Project about a possible connection between a suspect in that case and Collins.

“I’m heartbroken,” Alley said in a Monday statement about the ruling. “Frankly, I’m numb.”

Since the early 1990s, 22 death row inmates around the U.S. have been absolved of crimes through DNA evidence. Innocence Project attorneys had hoped to use such evidence for the first time to exonerate a person who has already been executed.

A statement from the Innocence Project on Monday said they were very disappointed in the decision and have already filed a notice of appeal.

Collins was 19 and stationed at the former Memphis Naval Air Station in Millington, Tennessee, when she went jogging in a nearby park on the night of July 11, 1985. Her body was discovered early the next day. She had been beaten, raped and mutilated.

Sedley Alley confessed to the crime after 12 hours of questioning but later said the confession was coerced.

Shortly before Alley was executed, Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck helped argue for DNA evidence testing. The request was denied. Alley, 50, who had spent two decades on Tennessee’s death row, was put to death by injection on June 28, 2006.

That might have been the end of the story if Scheck had not received a call earlier this year from investigators in St. Louis. He said they wanted to discuss a possible connection between Collins and Thomas Bruce, who is jailed in Missouri and charged with sexually assaulting two women and killing a third at a Catholic Supply store there about a year ago. Scheck said investigators had told him Bruce attended the same avionics course as Collins in Millington.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell has made no public statements about a possible connection between Collins and Bruce. A phone message left Monday with Tim Swope, a spokesman for Bell, was not immediately returned.

Brice Donnelly, Bruce’s attorney, declined comment.

April Alley has been reluctant to talk about her effort to get DNA testing. Along with her brother, she witnessed her father’s execution. They had their hands up against the glass as he spoke his last words, telling them he loved them and to “stay strong.”

On Monday, she issued a statement thanking her supporters and vowing to “see this through to the end, no matter what it takes.”

Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan heard arguments in the case last month and dismissed the petition Monday, ruling that April Alley lacked standing to bring the petition on behalf of her father’s estate.

“This Court does not wish to minimize the Alley family’s sincerely-held belief that Sedley Alley is innocent of the rape and murder of LCpl. Collins,” Skahan wrote. However, state law does not permit the estate of a deceased inmate to file a petition for DNA testing on his behalf, so the court has no jurisdiction to consider the petition, she wrote.

“The Alley estate’s arguments are best addressed to the General Assembly and the Tennessee Supreme Court,” Skahan wrote.

The Innocence Project said the ruling means “It will now take months, if not years, to go through the courts to finally get to the truth in this matter.”

“If Tennessee executed an innocent person, we should know it, and the person who did it should be identified,” the group’s statement added.

Memphis prosecutors opposed the testing. Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said in an email Monday, “The law is very clear that the defendant’s estate has no standing in this matter. After 34 years of appeals by the defense, the Collins family continues to be the only victim in this case.”

Loller reported from Nashville. Jim Salter contributed to this report from St. Louis.

Eleven in all, their combined 158 years of service to the U.S. military make them brothers in arms as well as brothers raised on a family farm in rural Alabama.

Seven of the 11 gathered in mid-July at a hotel and casino in Mississippi for a reunion thick with brotherly love and military pride. They laughed together, told stories from their days growing up and serving the country and reminisced about what it was like to be black in the U.S. military in the 20th century in America.

But in the end, they talked less about racism than the lack of respect all veterans feel from their fellow Americans.

“Being in the military, it was a fine thing,” said Lebronze Davis, who fought in the Vietnam War and has survived cancer and heart surgery. “We all think we’ve done an outstanding job.”

In 2017, the Davis men were honored by the National Infantry Museum Foundation. The names of the 11 brothers and their uncle are engraved on four paving stones installed at the museum.

“What these brothers did out of love for both family and country is nothing short of remarkable,” foundation president Pete Jones said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Their sense of duty is unrivaled, and is the kind of spirit that makes our nation’s armed forces the greatest in the world.”

Sixteen siblings — the 11 veterans, plus three sisters and two brothers who did not enter the military — grew up on a 60-acre (24-hectare) cotton farm in Wetumpka, Alabama, where their parents worked hard to put food on the table. Mom was the disciplinarian, dad had a softer approach.

“Their moral and ethical values were pristine,” said Arguster, the youngest at 67 years old.

When the boys graduated high school, it seemed natural to enter the military.

Military experience runs long in the Davis family. The brothers’ uncle, 99-year-old Master Sgt. Thomas Davis, survived Pearl Harbor’s surprise attack.

Ben Jr. was the first brother to enlist. He joined the Navy in 1944, while World War II was still raging.

Arguster served in the Air Force for four years and then the Air Force Reserve until 1998.

Lebronze, 70, saw the heaviest fighting of the group: He survived jungle ambushes as an Army soldier in Vietnam, where he developed advanced napping skills.

“I can go out in any bushes and sleep like a Holiday Inn,” Lebronze said. “You learn how to do it because you are so tired. But guess what, you can hear a gnat go by you.”

The brothers talk often, and try get together every year. This year, seven of them traveled to Tunica, Mississippi, for some gambling and buffet action to celebrate three July birthdays. They spoke with an Associated Press reporter in a meeting room at the Horseshoe hotel.

The Davis roll call features a mix of personalities.

Octavious, the brothers agree, is the jokester. An Army veteran, he drew riotous laughter when he told a bear-in-the-woods joke.

“We just like to get together and talk trash and just have a good time,” said Octavious, 80. “All of us are close.”

Lebronze is known as the straightforward brother. Brothers Frederick, 68 — the serious one — and the more practical Julius, 73, joined him in serving in the Army during Vietnam.

Eddie, 89, also served during Vietnam, but that was just part of his 23 year career with the Army and Air Force. He has a more spiritual side, while Army veteran Nathaniel, 75, is no-nonsense.

Washington, a six-year Army veteran, has passed away. Ben, Alphonza, who served 29 years in the Army, and Calvin, who did four years in the Navy, couldn’t attend.

In their years after serving, the brothers have worked for the U.S. Postal Service and the Bureau of Prisons, as electricians and businessmen. And they clearly have shared personality traits: friendliness, strong work ethic, mutual respect.

They remember being disrespected too, like the white-only drinking fountains and “colored-only” waiting areas they endured while growing up in the years of legal segregation.

“These were the norms we saw,” Nathaniel said.

But the brothers said they didn’t experience much racism in the military. Julius does recall when his base in Mobile, Alabama, was put on alert the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Everybody thought that black people were going to tear the town up,” he said.

Octavious says the brothers don’t often talk with one another about their military experiences. Lebronze won’t watch war movies and he doesn’t even dream about his time in Vietnam.

But they all boomed a collective “no” in response to one question: Are veterans respected as much today as in the past?

Arguster says he has grown weary of the overused phrase, “thank you for your service.”

His preference?

“I would much rather hear them say, ‘Thank you for helping to keep this country free.’”

So, the banners were passed, hand-to-hand, through the crowd.

Some mourners wept as they clutched the flags briefly. Others kissed them. But the three veterans laid to rest on a rainy Memphis morning were strangers to most of those who gathered to honor their memory.

The service was part of a national effort by funeral homes, medical examiners, state and federal veterans’ affairs departments, and local veterans’ groups to pay final respects to members of the military whose bodies were not claimed by any relatives. Since 2000, Dignity Memorial and other funeral homes in more than 30 cities have organized about 3,000 funerals for soldiers, sailors and Marines who died alone, but still deserved a dignified funeral and burial, said Jeff Berry, Dignity’s general manager in Knoxville.

Soldiers Arnold M. Klechka, 71, and Wesley Russell, 76, and Marine Charles B. Fox, 60, were laid to rest in a service attended by about 700 people at West Tennessee Veterans Cemetery in Memphis on Thursday. There was a gun salute, and a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.”

But none of them had family members present.

Amelia Callicott did show up. She wept during the service, thinking of her late father and husband, who both served in the military. Callicott said she learned about the service through friends and Facebook. She felt a duty to honor the men.

“It touched my heart when no one came to claim these gentlemen, these soldiers, because they fought for our freedom,” said Callicott, 69. “Any serviceman, they’re just like family to me, and I just can’t see laying them to rest without going and seeing their final moments, to say goodbye.”

Organizing the funerals, which are fairly commonplace in Tennessee, requires a lot of teamwork.

Berry said the process usually begins with county medical examiners or local coroners, who contact state or national veterans’ cemeteries with names of people whose bodies have gone unclaimed. They typically were either homeless or had no surviving relatives to claim them.

And some have had surviving family members who did not want to claim them.

The cemeteries determine whether the service members were honorably discharged. If they were, medical examiners or the cemeteries then contact Dignity, which is owned by Service Corporation International, or one of its partner funeral homes. A funeral director then sets up the memorial service, and the funeral home covers the cost, Berry said.

Cemetery directors can file claims with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for grave markers or placards for columbariums, according to the Tennessee Department of Veterans’ Services. The VA also gives money to individuals or entities that provide burials, caskets and transportation to cemeteries for unclaimed deceased vets.

Memorial services are publicized through news outlets, veterans’ groups like the American Legion, or social media. Honor Guard and other active military members attend, but it’s the strangers who come out of respect for the military and the dead who bring dignity to the occasion.

A service for unclaimed veterans is planned in the coming weeks at East Tennessee State Veterans Cemetery in Knoxville, Berry said.

“Most of the time, it’s folks that had no knowledge of the person in life,” Berry said. “One thing I’ve learned in working with the veterans is that they are a tight knit group. They really support each other. It’s like a band of brothers or sisters.”

During the Memphis ceremony, funeral director Gary Taylor thanked those who showed up.

Then, he spoke directly to the caskets.

“Today, we salute you,” Taylor said. “Today we all claim you as our own.”