News
July 26, 2016
A statue of Justice Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., will be dedicated August 27 to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the Justice A.A. Birch Building in downtown Nashville.
Justice Adolpho Birch was the first African-American to serve as Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court and spent 37 years…
July 25, 2016
Tennessee ranks ninth in United States for providing access to its courts, according to the 2016 Justice Index, a nationwide study that ranks states according to their adoption of selected best practices for ensuring access to justice. Furthermore, Tennessee takes the No. 1 ranking in the Southeast…
July 22, 2016
From the Tullahoma NewsThe Coffee County Drug Court program keeps growing. Seventeen participants graduated on July 6 – the largest number of graduates since the program’s beginning over a decade ago, according to Coffee County Mayor Gary Cordell.The graduation was held July 6 at the Coffee County…
July 20, 2016
The statewideIndigent Representation Task Force will hear from the public at meetings to be held next week in Nashville and next month in Franklin.The task force has traveled throughout the state on a listening tour to hear from the legal community as well as the general public regarding indigent…
June 28, 2016
From the Clarksville Leaf ChronicleCLARKSVILLE — “PT for PTSD” was the motto of the day at All Rise for Exercise, an event created by the Montgomery County Veterans Treatment Court.On June 14, Austin Peay’s Foy Fitness Center opened its doors to VTC participants, staff and Judge…
June 9, 2016
UPDATE: See photos from the day here.Declaring summer is officially here, Chief Justice Sharon Lee and Tennessee Bar Association President William L. Harbison, have issued a joint proclamation announcing Seersucker Day for the legal community on Thursday, June 16.That date marks the annual Bench…
May 12, 2016
The Supreme Court’s Indigent Representation Task Force will make stops in Johnson City and Knoxville as it continues its listening tour across the state to hear from anyone interested in sharing thoughts about representation for those who are accused of a crime and unable to afford an attorney.The…
April 27, 2016
The location for the first stop of the Indigent Representation Task Force statewide listening tour has been moved to the Vasco Smith Building in Memphis. It previously was scheduled to be in the Criminal Justice Center.The details for Thursday’s listening tour stop:Thursday, April 28, 2016 3:00 p.m…
April 20, 2016
The Indigent Representation Task Force has announced a series of statewide listening tours to hear from those interested in sharing their thoughts on indigent defense in Tennessee. The first two stops will be next week in West Tennessee.The Task Force will convene in Memphis on April 28 and again…
April 12, 2016
Sen. Steven Dickerson (R-Nashville) and Rep. Harold M. Love, Jr. (D-Nashville), along with leaders in the judicial and legal communities announced an initiative today to improve awareness of and access to expungements in Tennessee.A key component of the initiative is information that has been…
March 3, 2016
From the Daily News JournalIn the 15 years since the Drug Court (now called Recovery Court) in Rutherford County accepted its first three participants, hundreds of people have passed through it, relieving the strain on the jail, as well as offering more hopeful alternatives for the offenders.In…
February 12, 2016
From The Tennessean For Leondra Benford, going to court in a school cafeteria on a recent Saturday morning was a big relief.For Rickie Dibrell, it was one of the best mornings he'd had in a while.Benford and Dibrell are both parents of Metro Nashville Public Schools…
August 12, 2015
From The Leaf-Chronicle:CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – When Caleb Keller was honorably discharged from the Army in 2011, he had a number of options in front of him.He wanted to be a pilot, a physicist, just about anything. But Keller couldn’t settle on any one direction.Eventually, the former infantryman in…
July 21, 2015
Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 13 authorizes the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to enter into contracts for representation of indigent litigants by attorneys working on various types of cases, including representation of indigent Respondents facing involuntary emergency judicial…
July 16, 2015
From WPLN:Veterans Courts Work To Fix Ex-Soldiers' Lives — Often Decades After They Leave MilitaryKris Hansen sits alone in a corner of the courtroom, eating a piece of the cake baked in his honor.Nashville's Veterans Court is throwing a graduation ceremony for Hansen and the three other men who'…
May 17, 2015
The Davidson County Veterans Treatment Court Foundation led the effort to gain bipartisan approval of the Veterans Criminal Justice Compensation Act, a first-in-the-nation initiative to provide sustainable funding for existing veterans courts and funding to establish new treatment courts across…
August 27, 2014
Appellate, trial, general sessions, juvenile, and municipal judges from across the state of Tennessee attended a weeklong training earlier this month in Murfreesboro.More than 100 judges participated in the sessions as students or teachers, which included information on transitioning from a law…
March 5, 2014
Sullivan County General Sessions Judge William A. "Bill" Watson died last week after an extended illness. Judge Williams,74, was first elected in 1998.More information and a complete obituary are availble from TriCities.com.
January 22, 2014
The Office of Gov. Bill Haslam is taking applications for a special judge for the General Sessions Court in Sullivan County. The need for a special judge is created by Judge William A. Watson’s notification to the Governor that he is unable to perform his judicial duties at the present time.All…
September 26, 2013
The Tennessee General Sessions Judges Conference (TGSJC) presented the inaugural Judge Leon Ruben Awards in recognition of outstanding service and accomplishment by General Sessions judges.Judge Thomas L. Moore, Jr. of Weakley County and Judge A. Ben Strand, Jr. of Jefferson County were the…