(12/29/2005)
A new state law, effective Jan. 1, could generate millions of dollars to bolster courthouse security in 94 counties without costing taxpayers a penny. Knox County opted out of the bill, which was enacted by the General Assembly during the 2005 legislative session.
The statute also simplifies the system used by court clerks to collect fees in civil and criminal cases. Under the new law, most fees will become uniform across the state, shifting to flat fees applying to categories of judicial proceedings. The existing law, adopted in 1974, includes 120 different dollar amounts or percentages to be collected for various services performed by court clerks. Fees for the same services also vary from county to county.
“This legislation was the result of months of study and work by a Tennessee Judicial Council committee and others who were committed to coming up with a revenue neutral uniform system of clerk fees,” said Elizabeth Sykes, interim administrative director of the courts. “As they are now, there is an incredible lack of uniformity from one county or court to the next.”
The bill adopted this year was amended as it worked its way through the legislative process to add $2 to continuance fees, raising the state-mandated fee to $7. Beginning with the new year, the additional $2 will be collected for every continuance in every court. The money will remain in the counties where it is collected and must be used for courthouse security.
“A number of tragic incidents across the country in recent years has put the spotlight on the critical need to make our courthouses safe and secure,” Sykes said. “But, it has been difficult for some counties to come up with money to buy the equipment and pay personnel to make sure that the public, judges, lawyers, parties in court cases and everyone who uses our courthouses can be assured they are safe facilities. This is going to make it possible for counties provide courthouse security without relying on taxpayers to foot the bill.”
(12/15/2005)
The 7,000 daily visitors to the Tennessee court system website will have an easier time remembering how to get there. The old address - www.tsc.state.tn.us - will continue to work, but a new simpler address - www.tncourts.gov - has been added.
The court system website was first introduced in 1995, primarily as a tool for the legal community. Appellate court decisions have been posted since its inception and other material continues to be added,including a section for children. Videos in seven languages explaining certain court proceedings can be accessed as well as links to other law and court related websites.
The court system website is not affiliated with www.tncourts.com or www.tncourts.org, which are private commercial sites.
Randy Camp, who has served three years as state personnel commissioner, will become administrative director of the Tennessee court system effective Jan. 1, Chief Justice William M. Barker announced Thursday.
“The Supreme Court is pleased that Commissioner Camp has agreed to accept the position,” Barker said. “We carefully considered each of the outstanding applicants and concluded that he had the background and experience we were seeking to continue moving the judicial system in a positive direction.”
As court administrator, Camp will oversee a staff of 84 in the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) and manage a $94 million budget for trial and appellate courts statewide, including more than $17 million appropriated by the General Assembly for indigent defense. The AOC provides support services for 183 trial and appellate court judges and their staffs and also provides educational programs and other services for general sessions and municipal court judges and their clerks.
Camp will succeed Interim Director Elizabeth Sykes, who served as deputy director under Cornelia A. Clark, now a member of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Gov. Phil Bredesen appointed Clark to the Supreme Court in September to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Frank F. Drowota, III.
As commissioner of personnel, Camp oversees 10 divisions with 115 employees. The Department of Personnel serves approximately 38,000 state employees across Tennessee.
Prior to his appointment to Bredesen’s cabinet, Camp served as a state claims commissioner and was Crockett County General Sessions and Juvenile Court judge for eight years. From 1987 to 1990, he served as assistant district attorney general for the 28th Judicial District, including Crockett, Haywood and Gibson Counties. Before that, he worked three years as chief of staff to Lt. Gov. John Wilder.
Camp, 53, is a Crockett County native. He holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Tennessee at Martin and a law degree from Memphis State University.
(11/16/2005)
Teddy bears, balloons and smiling children are not the norm in courtrooms, but they will be for one Saturday morning in Hamblen County.
In honor of National Adoption Day, Chancellor Thomas (Skip) Frierson will hold court at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, in the Hamblen County Courthouse to finalize the adoptions of a dozen children, including a sibling group of six. The children will leave the ceremony with new last names, new families and a new sense of security - some for the first time in their short lives.
For Frierson, the legal duty is a personal pleasure.
"As the father of three adopted children - a daughter and two sons - I cannot imagine a more rewarding and fulfilling honor than to have a small role in creating these new families," he said. "We adopted our youngest child this year, so this event is especially meaningful to me personally."
The judge and his staff, with assistance from the Bar Association, are providing refreshments and will decorate the courtroom with balloons. Each child also will receive a special Teddy bear to commemorate the change in their lives.
"Handling adoptions is always very special," Frierson said. "Courtrooms often are the scenes of confrontations and angry exchanges, so it is wonderful to do something in a courtroom that makes so many people happy."
The Frierson family includes children adopted in the United States and from Russian orphanages.
"We started the process the first time around in 1993," Frierson said. "We went through Holston United Methodist Home for Children in Greeneville. In August of 1994, we got a phone call and were told they had a little girl who was six weeks old. We were ecstatic. They called on Tuesday and were on our doorstep with our new daughter on Friday morning."
The Friersons took custody of the baby immediately and started the legal proceedings for adoption. Then, in 1998, the family decided it was time to add a new member - a sibling for their daughter. But, they learned it could take up to five years to adopt a baby domestically, so they contacted Catholic Social Services to find out about the possibility of a foreign adoption.
After completing the background checks and paperwork, the couple waited for a call telling them they would be going to Russia to bring home the baby son they had seen only in a video and a few snapshots. This year, they returned to Russia and brought home a second son.
National Adoption Day was designed to facilitate the adoption of foster children and bring attention to their plight. Across the nation, attorneys, judges, foster care professionals and child advocates join forces to encourage the adoptions of children needing permanent homes.
About 10,000 Tennessee children are in foster care, including more than 1,000 who are available for adoption. Frierson said in some cases parents have voluntarily given up their children, but many others have had their parental rights terminated by the courts because of child abuse or neglect.
When they leave the courtroom of Chancellor Arnold Goldin on Saturday, Nov. 19, about 20 children clutching Teddy bears will have new last names, new families, permanent loving homes and a sense of security many have not felt in their short lives.
As part of National Adoption Day, Goldin will open his courtroom at 9 a.m. to legalize the childrens' adoptions and help the newly created families celebrate. The chancellor and his staff are putting up banners and providing refreshments in honor of the event. The guests of honor also will receive "New Family" certificates and each child will leave with a special Teddy bear.
"Those of us who are judges spend much of our time dealing with people who are involved in conflicts and unpleasant situations," Goldin said. "It is so uplifting and such an honor for me to have a role in the adoptions of children. I look forward all year to this celebration and to witnessing the joy on the faces of the children and their families."
Many of the adoptees who come before Goldin and other judges across Tennessee throughout the year have spent most of their lives in state custody. In Tennessee, approximately 10,000 children are in foster care, including more than 1,000 who are eligible for adoption.
National Adoption Month in November and National Adoption Day were designed to facilitate the adoption of foster children and bring attention to their plight. Attorneys, judges, foster care professionals and child advocates join forces during November to encourage the adoptions of children needing permanent homes.
Goldin said in some cases, parents have voluntarily given up the children, but others have had their parental rights terminated by the courts because of child abuse or neglect.
Criminal Court Judge Stephen (Steve) M. Bevil of Chattanooga passed away this morning after an extended battle with cancer. He was 60 years old and had served Division III of the 11th Judicial District since 1990.
"Judge Bevil has been a respected and beloved member of the Tennessee Judicial Conference who will be missed by every judge in Tennessee," said Libby Sykes, interim administrative director of the courts. "I and others who are part of the judicial family were pleased to see him last month at the Judicial Conference at Fall Creek Falls State Park. It is wonderful to have that memory. Our sympathies go out to his family and legions of friends. We have lost one of the state's best judges and a truly wonderful human being."
(11/10/2005)
Students from six Sullivan County high schools will hear arguments in three state Supreme Court cases as participants in a program created to educate young Tennesseans about the judicial branch of government.
The 330 students and their teachers will attend a special Supreme Court session Nov. 16 at Kingsport City Hall. Each of three groups of students will hear oral arguments in one actual case, followed by a question and answer session with the attorneys for both sides in the case.
High schools participating in SCALES - an acronym for the Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students – are Dobyns Bennett, Tennessee, Sullivan East, Sullivan North, Sullivan South and Sullivan Central.
Participating students and teachers also will join the Supreme Court, local judges, attorneys and other guests for lunch, sponsored by the Kingsport and Bristol Bar Associations, and a brief program.
Teachers whose classes are involved in the project attended a three-hour professional development session where they reviewed cases to be argued at SCALES. The teachers also were provided with notebooks of materials to use in their classrooms, including suggested activities, and SCALES Project handbooks for each student.
"The Tennessee Supreme Court believes that knowledge and understanding of the judicial branch of government are essential to good citizenship,” Chief Justice William M. Barker said.
“The SCALES Project is designed to educate young participants about the system they will inherit. The interaction we have with the students renews our faith that our nation’s future is in good hands.”
Circuit Court Judge McLellan, who is coordinating the project in the Second Judicial District, other local judges and attorneys met with participating teachers at the professional development session to schedule classroom visits to review the cases and issues to be considered by the Supreme Court. After justices rule in the cases, copies of the court's opinions will be provided to the classes and posted on the court system website at www.tsc.state.tn.us.
"The SCALES Project is important because it creates a partnership between the judiciary, the Bar and schools to promote a better understanding of the judicial branch of government," the chief justice said. "We hope that teachers will use the materials to make judicial education a continuing part of their curriculum."
The cases students will hear in Kingsport are State of Tennessee v. Jerry Hayes, Jr., Karen Renee Howell v. State of Tennessee and State of Tennessee v. Kirk Williams.
Issues the court will consider are whether a traffic stop conducted at an ID checkpoint in a public housing development was unconstitutional as an unreasonable seizure; whether a juvenile charged with a delinquent act and found by a juvenile court judge to be committable to an institution for the mentally retarded or mentally ill can be transferred to circuit court and tried as an adult; and whether evidence obtained as a result of a traffic stop involving Kirk Williams’ vehicle should be suppressed.
(11/07/2005)
Tennessee Supreme Court Justices E. Riley Anderson and Cornelia Clark and Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Cottrell attended an invitation-only National Conference on Appellate Justice in Washington, DC.
The meeting, Nov. 4-6, focused on what changes may be necessary to accommodate a steady rise in appellate cases nationwide. Other issues participants discussed included the changing nature of the appellate workload, decreasing financial support for the judicial branch, the impact of technology and the decline in the number of case dispositions by trial.
The Tennessee judges received conference scholarships from the State Justice Institute (SJI). In addition, Clark received funding from the National Conference on Appellate Justice Foundation.
Anderson, Clark and Cottrell were among 200 judges, lawyers, legal scholars and court staff from across the country invited to participate. The working conference was co-sponsored by the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, the Federal Judicial Center, the Institute of Judicial Administration and the National Center for State Courts.
(10/17/2005)
Circuit Court Judge Karen Williams of the 30 th Judicial District, Shelby County, has completed the Managing Challenging Family Law Cases: A Practical Approach course at The National Judicial College.
“Although divorce cases are only a small fraction of the entire caseload, a highly contested divorce can take as much trial time as a complex medical malpractice case or even a wrongful death case,” Williams said. “This intensive course, comprised of nearly six hours of discussion each day for four days, is designed to help judges manage the highly-contested divorce case more effectively and efficiently.”
The family law course enables judges to use information regarding child development to design appropriate parenting plans; manage family law cases effectively and with appropriate intervention; handle pro se litigants effectively; evaluate evidence pertaining to business financial records and make reasoned decisions; recognize the dynamics involved in high-conflict families; and learn to manage high-conflict cases with ease.
The National Judicial College in Reno, NV, is entering its 42nd year of providing judicial education and professional development. The college offers an average of 90 courses annually with more than 2,700 judges enrolling from all 50 states, U.S. territories and more than 150 countries.
In addition to a National Tribal Judicial Center, the Donald W. Reynolds Courts and Media Center and an International Center, NJC houses technology-enhanced classrooms, a legal resource center, a state-of-the-art model courtroom, modern seminar rooms, distance education facilities and a computer lab.
The combination of drugs and method of administering them to condemned prisoners is constitutional, the Tennessee Supreme Court said in a decision striking down challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocol raised by death row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman.
Justice E. Riley Anderson, who wrote the court’s unanimous ruling, said none of the issues raised in Abdur’Rahman’s appeal should result in a judicial ban on lethal injection executions under existing Department of Corrections (DOC) policies. Anderson was joined in the decision by now-retired Chief Justice Frank F. Drowota, III, current Chief Justice William M. Barker and justices Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., and Janice M. Holder.
“Although this court has recently upheld the use of lethal injection as a constitutionally permissible means of imposing the death penalty … we have never addressed the issue of whether the specific protocol in Tennessee for executing a death sentence by lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment,” Anderson wrote. “…We conclude that the petitioner has failed to establish that the lethal injection protocol is cruel and unusual punishment under the United States or Tennessee constitutions.”
The Supreme Court ruling, filed Monday, affirms decisions by Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle and the state Court of Appeals, which held that the use of sodium Pentothal, pancuronium bromide (Pavulon) and potassium chloride does not deny due process or violate state or constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. The three courts also rejected other issues raised by Abdur’Rahman, including a claim that the use of Pavulon in executions violates a state law banning its use to euthanize pets.
“… We begin with an analysis of whether the lethal injection protocol comports with contemporary standards of decency,” Anderson wrote. “In ascertaining ‘contemporary standards of decency,’ a court must look to ‘objective evidence of how our society views a particular punishment today’ … The most reliable objective evidence of contemporary standards is most often found in legislation.”
Anderson said the Tennessee legislature adopted lethal injection as a means of carrying out executions and “there is overwhelming evidence that lethal injection, which is commonly thought to be the most humane form of execution, is consistent with contemporary standards of decency.”
“Moreover, no court has ever held that lethal
injection is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth
Amendment of the United States Constitution,” he wrote.
Abdur’Rahman, formerly known as James Lee Jones, was convicted
of first degree
murder and sentenced to death for the 1986 murder of Patrick Daniels.
Abdur’Rahman and another man entered the home Daniels shared
with Norma Norman, bound, blindfolded and stabbed them. Norman survived
her wounds.
In 1990, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed Abdur’Rahman’s first degree murder conviction and death sentence. The court also denied his application for permission to file a post-conviction appeal. Abdur’Rahman has a federal appeal pending.
He filed his challenge to the use of lethal injections in 2002 and received an evidentiary hearing in Chancery Court. Testimony from prison officials, medical experts and others dealt, in part, with the use of sodium Pentothal, which puts the inmates to sleep; Pavulon, which stops breathing; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Experts testifying for Abdur’Rahman said the use of Pavulon creates a risk that an inmate would not be able to signal that he or she is suffering during the execution process. Experts for the state said the doses of the drugs administered under the protocol would make it unlikely an inmate would feel any pain.
Anderson said lethal injection is the method of execution in 37 of 38 states with capital punishment. The protocol used in Tennessee is “consistent with the overwhelming majority of lethal injection protocols used by other states and the federal government,” he wrote.
“… The petitioner’s arguments simply are not supported
by the evidence in the record,” Anderson wrote. “There was no
evidence in the record that the procedures followed under the lethal injection
protocol have resulted in the problems feared by the petitioner; indeed,
the undisputed evidence was that the sole lethal injection carried out in
Tennessee, i.e., Robert Coe in 2000, had revealed ‘no significant
difficulties with the process’ … We cannot judge the lethal
injection protocol based solely on speculation as to problems or mistakes
that might occur.”
(10/06/2005)
In a first of its kind decision, the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled 4-1 in favor of a woman who gave birth to triplets using donated eggs fertilized with the sperm of a man who later claimed she was not the legal mother because she has no genetic link to the children.
The majority opinion filed Wednesday and written by now-retired Chief Justice Frank F. Drowota, III, upheld decisions by the Williamson County Juvenile Court and the state Court of Appeals that “the woman is the children’s legal mother with all the rights and responsibilities of parenthood.” The majority also agreed with the lower courts in awarding joint custody to the parents, with the mother as primary custodian, providing for visitation for the father and ordering him to pay child support.
“Recent developments in reproductive technology have caused a tectonic shift in the realities which underlie our legal conceptions of parenthood,” Drowota wrote. “… We now live in an era where a child may have as many as five different ‘parents.’”
The Supreme Court decision was based, in part, on the triplets’ unmarried parents’ “demonstrated” intent prior to and during the pregnancy that the woman who bore them would be the mother. In addition, the majority concluded that “sound policy and common sense favor recognizing gestation as an important factor for establishing legal maternity.”
Drowota was joined by Chief Justice William M. Barker and Justices E. Riley Anderson and Janice M. Holder. Drowota retired Sept. 2, but was designated a special justice to work on pending cases. He has been succeeded on the court by Justice Cornelia Clark, who was appointed Sept. 19.
In a separate dissenting opinion, Justice Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., said the majority “reached beyond existing law to produce a palatable result.” Birch wrote that the case should have been resolved under current state law, but instead the majority provided “a stop-gap solution usable for this case alone.”
“Unless our legislature acts, I fear that this narrowly tailored solution designed for this specific case will be used as precedent for other cases involving reproductive technolgy,” Birch wrote. “... Tennessee statutes do not use gestation or intent to confer parental status, instead genetics, marriage and adoption are the routes available. This overreaching is not necessary in my opinion.”
Writing for the majority, Drowota said current state laws dealing with parentage do not “contemplate the circumstances of this case, where an unmarried couple has employed techniques for assisted reproduction involving third-party egg donation to produce children for their own benefit and where dispute has arisen over the genetically unrelated gestator’s legal status as mother.”
“In our view, given the far-reaching, profoundly complex, and competing public policy considerations necessarily implicated by the present controversy, crafting a broadly applicable rule for the establishment of maternity where techniques for assisted human reproduction are involved is more appropriately addressed by the Tennessee General Assembly,” the majority said.
The couple, identified in the opinion as “Cindy C.” and “Dr.
Charles K.G.” to protect the identities of the
children, met in 1993, began dating the following year
and later decided to have a child by in vitro fertilization.
Two anonymously donated eggs were fertilized with Dr.
Charles K.G.’s
sperm and one of the eggs divided, resulting in the
development of triplets.
An agreement signed by Cindy C. and Dr. Charles K.G.
stated that she “will
be the mother of any child(ren) born to me as a result of
egg donation …” The
document was among several they signed at a Nashville
fertility clinic.
The babies were born in 2001 while Cindy C. and Dr. Charles K.G. lived together. The mother stayed home for several months before returning to work and the father took a one-year leave of absence following the births.
“For the first several months after the triplets’ birth, Charles and Cindy lived together and shared parenting responsibilities,” Drowota wrote. “They each provided financially for the children’s needs.”
The couple purchased a home in Brentwood, but their relationship deteriorated. In April 2002, she filed a petition in Williamson County juvenile court to establish parentage, obtain custody and child support. The father also sought custody of the triplets and said in his response that she failed to qualify as the legal mother under the state’s domestic relations laws.
The lower court disagreed and the father appealed the decision. The Court of Appeals affirmed the juvenile court judgments and held that there was no directly controlling precedent in Tennessee case law, making it a case of first impression.
“Finding that Cindy was the intended mother and that no other party claimed maternal status, the Court of Appeals held that Cindy is legally the children’s mother,” Drowota wrote.
In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeals
cited a California case and adopted its “intent test,” holding that the
issue is resolved by looking at the intent of the parties and not
just to genetics. The Supreme Court declined to adopt the intent
test or a genetic test and vacated that holding by the Court of
Appeals, instead basing its decision on “particularly
narrow grounds.”
(10/04/2005)
William M. Barker of Chattanooga was unanimously elected Tuesday by the Tennessee Supreme Court to serve as its chief justice. He will be sworn in Wednesday at the Supreme Court Building in Nashville prior to the start of a 10 a.m. docket.
“I am deeply honored to have been chosen by my colleagues on the Supreme Court,” he said. “I have the highest respect for the court’s intellectual integrity, enthusiasm, work ethic and commitment to service. I consider it a great privilege to serve as a member of the court, and now, as its chief justice.”
He succeeds interim Chief Justice E. Riley Anderson of Knoxville, who agreed to serve until a vacancy on the court was filled and a new chief justice could be elected to a full term. Anderson, who will swear in Barker, served following the Sept. 2 retirement of former Chief Justice Frank F. Drowota, III. Drowota’s vacant seat on the court was filled by Justice Cornelia Clark, who was appointed Sept. 19 by Gov. Phil Bredesen.
Barker, 64, was appointed to the five-member court in April 1998 and was elected to a full eight-year term in August 1998. He was a Circuit Court judge from 1983-1995 when he was appointed to the state Court of Criminal Appeals where he served until his appointment by Gov. Don Sundquist to the Supreme Court.
Barker earned his B.S. degree in 1964 at the University of Chattanooga and his J.D. at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He served in the United States Army Medical Service Corps from 1967-69.He is former president of the Chattanooga Trial Lawyers Association and is a fellow of both the Chattanooga Bar Foundation and the Tennessee Bar Foundation. His civic activities include membership in the Rotary Club and American Legion. He is a ruling elder at First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga.
Barker and his wife Catherine, a teacher, traveled to Slovakia
and the Czech Republic in April where they had been invited to
lecture at several schools, including two Slovakian law schools.
He taught the prospective lawyers in the former communist nations
about United States and Tennessee legal systems, inspiring a student
to write that Barker had motivated him to continue his studies
and taught him “how a good lawyer should
think and behave.”
(10/03/2005)
Circuit Court Judge Robert L. Childers of Memphis has been appointed to
a third term on an American Bar Association advisory commission created
to assist lawyers and other legal professionals with addictions and mental
health issues.
ABA President Michael Greco asked Childers to continue serving on
the advisory group for the Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP).
The commission’s goal is to educate the legal community about impairments
and the assistance available. Childers also is a member of CoLAP and the
commission for the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP).
“The legal community is taking a direct approach toward recognizing and
addressing these problems,” Childers said. “Lawyer assistance programs,
such as the one we have in Tennessee, are helping lawyers with personal issues
and, as a result, the programs are indirectly helping the lawyers’ clients.”
The Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program provides consultation,
assessment, referral, intervention and other services for lawyers, judges,
bar applicants and law students with issues such as substance abuse, stress,
family problems, depression, gambling and eating disorders. The program
was created by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1999 and is funded by attorneys.
According to CoLAP, 10 percent of the general population has problems
with alcohol abuse, but 15-18 percent of legal professionals battle the
same problem and related issues.
“Many lawyers are overachievers who work long hours dealing with stressful
situations,” Childers said. “Sadly, those factors can lead to alcoholism,
depression and other problems.”
Childers also is chairing a CoLAP Conditional Admission Subcommittee.
Tennessee and several other states are considering adopting rules on conditional
admission to the practice of law.