TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Feb 12, 2021

The Tennessee judiciary is mourning today’s death of retired Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Jerry L. Smith. A 1978 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, Smith was appointed to the Court of Criminal Appeals in 1995 by then-Gov. Don Sundquist. He was elected to a full term on the bench in 1996 and was reelected in 1998 and 2006. Prior to joining the bench, Smith worked for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office as an assistant attorney general and deputy attorney general. For many years, he was an instructor at the Nashville School of Law. After his retirement from the bench in 2014, he taught at the Belmont University College of Law as an adjunct faculty member. Read more about his career from the Administrative Office of the Courts.