Tennessee Plan - Process

Process

When a vacancy occurs, the Judicial Nominating Commission accepts applications from any qualified Tennessee lawyer. Typical qualifications include age, residency and proper professional standing. The commission submits three nominees—altogether called a panel—to the governor of Tennessee.

If the governor rejects the entire panel, the commission must submit another panel. When this occurs, the governor must choose a judge from the second panel. No one who was on a rejected panel of nominees can be on the second panel.

The Judicial Nominating Commission is currently composed of 17 members, the makeup of which guarantees it to be bipartisan and representative of minorities, with members representing both the legal community and the citizenry at large.

Once chosen by the governor, the judge takes his/her seat. At the first statewide general election following his or her appointment the person's name is placed before the public on the ballot on a simple yes-no basis, e.g., "Shall Jon R. Smith be elected and retained as Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, for Middle Tennessee?" If a majority of voters decides this question in the negative, the process outlined above starts over.

Every eight years (1998, 2006, 2014, et seq.), all members of all of the state appellate courts are subjected to this process as well. All judges are elected statewide, not just in the Grand Division from which they are appointed.

In 2006, all judges submitted for approval received an affirmative vote of at least 70 percent.

In advance of the end-of-term retention elections, the 12-member Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission reviews the record of incumbent judges and publishes its approximately six weeks before the retention elections. This report gives the panel's rationale for its recommendations based on the public record of each of the judges and a public interview process in which potential areas for improvement are noted. The report summarizes these findings and notes the vote by which judge was recommended (or, theoretically, not recommended) for retention, although not how each individual commissioner voted.

This report is published in the state's major metropolitan newspapers; the 2006 report appeared in Sunday papers as a special section. The 2006 report endorsed all of the incumbent judges seeking reelection, most unanimously and none by a margin of less than 8-3; one member appointed to the review panel this time was unable to serve.