Tennessee Supreme Court

The Tennessee Supreme Court is the highest court in the state of Tennessee. The Supreme Court's three buildings are seated in Nashville, Knoxville, and Jackson, Tennessee. The Court is composed of five members: a chief justice, and four justices. As of September 1, 2023^[update], the chief justice is Holly M. Kirby.

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.

When Tennessee was admitted as a state on June 1, 1796, it didn't have a provision for a judicial branch of government in its constitution. The Tennessee legislature created a Superior Court with three judges who were elected by the general assembly and functioned as both a trial court and an appellate court. In 1809, the Superior Court was abolished by the Tennessee legislature and a new Supreme Court of Error and Appeals, which only heard appellate cases, was established. In 1835, Tennessee adopted a new state constitution that established the judiciary an independent branch of government, which included the Supreme Court as well as a system of lower courts. This court had three justices.

The third Tennessee State Constitution, adopted in 1870, called for five justices, no more than two of whom may come from any one of the state's three Grand Divisions (East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee) in order to prevent regional bias. For the same purpose, the court is required to convene alternately in Nashville, Knoxville, and Jackson. In recent years, its provision has been regarded as permissive rather than restrictive. Therefore, the court has met in other cities, such as Chattanooga, Kingsport, and Memphis, throughout the state as part of a legal education project for high school students called Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students (SCALES). SCALES has been instrumental in allowing over 36,000 high school students from over 540 high schools in Tennessee to see the court in action since 1995.

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 hears only 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. The Tennessee Supreme Court was created through the Constitutional Convention of 1834 and replaced the Tennessee Court of Errors and Appeals.

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

Originally, each justice was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly for life.^{[citation needed]}