Tennessee Supreme Court

Tennessee Supreme Court
Established	1841
Jurisdiction	Tennessee, United States
Location	Knoxville, Nashville, and Jackson
Composition method	Executive selection plus Non-partisan retention see Tennessee Plan
Authorized by	Tennessee Constitution
Decisions are appealed to	Supreme Court of the United States
Number of positions	5
Website	tsc.state.tn.us
Chief Justice
Currently	Cornelia Clark

The Tennessee Supreme Court is the state supreme court of the state of Tennessee. Cornelia Clark is the current Chief Justice.

Unlike other states, in which the state attorney general is directly elected or appointed by the governor or state legislature, the Tennessee Supreme Court appoints the Tennessee Attorney General.

Structure

The current Tennessee State Constitution, adopted in 1870, calls for five justices, of which at least one but not more than two must be from each of the state's three Grand Divisions (East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee) in order to prevent regional bias.

Additionally, the court is required to meet in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson, also to prevent regional bias. In recent years this provision has been regarded as permissive rather than restrictive, and the court has also met in other cities throughout the state as part of a legal education project for high school students.

The justices serve eight-year terms and can succeed themselves. The office of chief justice rotates among the justices. Justices are required to recuse themselves in cases in which they may have a personal interest; the whole court once had to step aside and a case be heard by a special court appointed by the governor, this occurring when the court itself became the subject of litigation, as described below.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has no original jurisdiction. Other than in cases of worker's compensation, which have traditionally been appealed directly to it from the trial court, it only hears appeals of civil cases which have been heard by the Court of Appeals, and of criminal cases that have been heard by the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Judicial selection

The method by which Tennessee's supreme court justices are selected has changed significantly over the years.

Originally, justices were elected by the Tennessee General Assembly and held lifetime tenures.

However, in 1853, the state constitution was amended to set judicial term lengths at eight years (even with changes in the election process, the tenure has remained at eight years ever since) and to provide that all judges (including supreme court justices) would be elected by the people. Under this arrangement, a justice could enter office either through gubernatorial appointment (to fill a vacancy) or by winning a partisan election. Either way, the justice would have to stand for reelection during the next general state election.

However, in 1971, a statute was passed that modified this process at the appellate level. Under a modified version of the Missouri Plan, appellate judges (including supreme court justices) would only be subjected to a "Yes/No" retention vote rather than partisan opponents. Thus it became impossible to become an appellate judge without being appointed by the governor.

The revised statue was subject to litigation. In the case of Higgins v. Dunn (1973), the Court held that the retention elections were constitutional, as the constitution only specified that judges were to be elected but did not specify the specific type of elections the General Assembly had to enact in doing so. Justice Allison Humphries, in his dissent, opined that the supreme court justices approving the constitutionality of the Modified Missouri Plan had, "like Esau, sold their soul for a mess of pottage" and had made the judicial branch subordinate to the legislative branch.

Partially as a result of the decision, in 1974, the statute was revised to remove Tennessee Supreme Court justices from the plan. However, in 1994 the plan (now called the "Tennessee Plan") was revised and once again extended to supreme court justices.

Once again, the statute was challenged, in the case of DeLaney v. Thompson (1998). The plaintiffs argued that the process was not an "election" in the sense envisioned by the writers of the state constitution, and that the court in Higgins v. Dunn had been incompetent to render a decision due to their interest in the subject matter of the case. DeLaney v. Thompson was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court; unlike in Higgins v. Dunn, this time the whole court recused itself. The Governor was thus required to appoint an entire "special Supreme Court" to hear this case; it refused to rule on the constitutionality of the Tennessee Plan, and instead remanded the case on a technicality.

As of 2011, only one member of the Tennessee Supreme Court has ever been removed under the Tennessee Plan. Former Justice Penny White was removed in 1996 in a campaign reminiscent of that used a few years prior in California against former Chief Justice Rose Bird, and for largely the same reason: White's apparent opposition to the death penalty.

Justices

Main article: List of Justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court

Current composition

As of 2010, the justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court were:

Name	Born	Birthplace	Appointed By	Beginning of Active Service
Gary R. Wade	May 31, 1948	Knox County, Tennessee	Phil Bredesen	May 30, 2006
Cornelia A. Clark	September 15, 1950	Franklin, Tennessee	Phil Bredesen	September 19, 2005
Sharon Gail Lee	December 8, 1953	Knoxville, Tennessee	Phil Bredesen	September 29, 2009
Janice M. Holder	August 29, 1949	Canonsburg, Pennsylvania	Don Sundquist	December 1996
William C. Koch, Jr.	September 12, 1947	Honolulu, Hawaii	Phil Bredesen	June 15, 2007

References

• Judicial Selection in the States: Tennessee (accessed April 21, 2011)
• Supreme Court Information and Biographies (accessed September 20, 2005)
• Supreme Court in the Tennessee Blue Book (pdf)