Ep. 57 Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals-Part 2

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) serves as an intermediary between trial courts and the Tennessee Supreme Court. The CCA hears cases in Jackson, Nashville, and Knoxville in panels of three judges from across the state, ensuring diverse perspectives in the judicial process.

 This episode continues the conversation from Part 1 with Judge Robert Wedemeyer, Judge Ross Dyer, Judge Camille McMullen and Judge Jill Bartee Ayers. 

Transcript

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00;00;00;22 - 00;00;19;09
Host
Welcome back to Tennessee Court Talk. We are continuing our conversation on the history and inner workings of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals with Judge Robert Whitmire. Judge Camille McMullen. Judge Ross Dyer and Judge Jill Ayres.

00;00;19;11 - 00;00;24;24
Host
What is the role of a presiding judge involved beyond running meetings and assigning cases?

00;00;24;27 - 00;00;55;14
Judge McMullen
So yeah, the the role of the presiding judge, at least my experience, really what it did involve a lot of administrative, duties handling, setting the docket, interacting with the clerks, across the state just to make sure, you know, the docket is, you know, there are no problems with setting the cases, managing the court, in terms of setting meetings and the agenda for our meetings and input and managing what is on the agenda.

00;00;55;16 - 00;01;22;01
Judge McMullen
Fielding those questions from the other members of the court and making sure that everybody you're kind of like the, center of the communication, you're the communication person for everyone, you know. People may not respond as quickly to Judge Dyer. You know, but they will respond to Judge Whitmire because they know that he's got information that they need to pay attention to.

00;01;22;02 - 00;01;48;05
Judge McMullen
So that's that, you know, you're you're the main communicator. You're also the face of the court primarily. That's at least for me. That's the way I held the position out to be. You know, you're interacting with, other state court at other state presiding judges. You're interacting with the chiefs on the other appellate courts. You're you're in terms of that court of appeals, in terms of the Supreme Court.

00;01;48;12 - 00;02;10;09
Judge McMullen
You know, they're managing their dockets, and you're communicating, you're the point person for them, for the court. So, you know, people say, you know, there's not a lot to it. It's a title. But I think at least for my experience, there was a, there was a lot more to it than just, you know, just setting the docket.

00;02;10;10 - 00;02;42;13
Judge Wedemeyer
I would point out everybody on this on our court, is a leader, a competent, a person who's totally capable of doing their job. And so there are 12 of us that if one person is going to be the presiding judge, it's it's basically you can kind of lead by example, and, make sure everybody is gets their voice heard if there's something they need to be heard about.

00;02;42;13 - 00;03;09;01
Judge Wedemeyer
And then work with the as, as judge McMullen pointed out, work with the clerks, to to make the docket flow smoothly and and things like that. I've already done some things interacting with some of the other courts. About this, that and the other and, you know, try to represent these other 11 judges who I respect and admire and not, not lead us astray, so to speak.

00;03;09;03 - 00;03;34;19
Judge McMullen
You know, Judge Whitmire as the presiding judge, he gets the calls from the chief justice to say, hey, what's going on with X judge, you know, or X judges docket. And back in the old days, we had presiding judges who had to, you know, manage their colleagues dockets who, you know, may not have been as good at managing as others, you know.

00;03;34;19 - 00;04;06;14
Judge McMullen
So those and they responded to the presiding judge and, you know, in a way, in a certain way, because that person, you know, held the respect of the court. And I'm I guess I'm going around about way of saying, you know, sometimes judges aren't as timely as they should be. And, you know, the presiding judge has the role of saying, hey, you need to get on your you get on your job of being timely, especially when you know, the Supreme Court, that's their job to is making sure that judges are, timely issuing their opinions.

00;04;06;14 - 00;04;12;21
Judge McMullen
And so there's good and bad parts of the administration piece of being the presiding judge.

00;04;12;23 - 00;04;18;29
Host
Does being in multiple cities across the state affect that, managing all the timeliness issues and things like that?

00;04;19;01 - 00;04;46;19
Judge McMullen
I mean, technology has been great in helping us, be more timely in issuances in the issuance of our opinions. And, and I attribute a lot of that to, the Supreme Court and their, investment in technology, over the past few years, as well as our appellate court clerk, his commitment to, seeing, you know, track and a lot of the other things that that help us circulate records, things like that.

00;04;46;19 - 00;04;55;08
Host
Well, I've got three more questions. And they involve everyone, not just the two presiding judges. What would you want the public to better understand about how appellate judges make decisions?

00;04;55;09 - 00;05;26;13
Judge Wedemeyer
I would like the public to understand about the way we make decisions that we do not make political decisions. We make decisions based on the law and the evidence and what happened at the trial court level. And there's no you know, there are 12 of us, but it's not like, well, there are eight liberals and four conservatives or, you know, it's it's not a political.

00;05;26;15 - 00;06;03;09
Judge Wedemeyer
The interesting thing is to become a judge, you almost have to be involved, politically in some way or another. Originally at least. But but once you become a judge, you are not, making decisions, on any kind of political or partizan basis. The judiciary is the third branch of the government and is supposed to be strong and independent of politics and, particularly, handling these criminal cases.

00;06;03;11 - 00;06;26;09
Judge Wedemeyer
You know, we're not I think everyone has said earlier or judgment, but, you know, we're we're not making policy. We're just looking at what happened at a criminal trial. All of us want that trial to have been a fair trial for both the state and the defendant. And we want to look at it very carefully and closely and take our time.

00;06;26;11 - 00;06;51;17
Judge Wedemeyer
But although our court operates pretty fast for a, for an appellate court, I mean, it's not going to be years before you get a decision on this court. It might be a couple of months, but it what I would like the public to know is, that we're, working hard to have a fair outcome on these cases. And it's not, it's not a political process.

00;06;51;19 - 00;07;09;26
Judge Dyer
I add to that Wedemeyer. It's it's even more than just not political. I would say, you know, I have issued opinions that I did not like. The result I had to reach, that I want the public to know that it's, you know, we're not writing to reach an outcome we want.

00;07;09;26 - 00;07;33;22
Judge Dyer
We're writing based on what the law dictates us and and how we review the case. You know, I mean, I have I've had I've had cases where I've thought, oh, I really don't like that, but that's the answer. And, and so we're not writing to reach a specific result. We're writing to reach what we believe the law says is the correct result.

00;07;33;22 - 00;07;38;14
Judge Dyer
And we don't always like what we write, but we fought. We do our best to follow the law.

00;07;38;16 - 00;08;03;13
Judge McMullen
The public probably doesn't know. Who. There's no reason for them to know who we are or what we do. As a matter of fact, I had a friend the first time I was on the ballot. She called me from the ballot booth and said, girl, your name is on this ballot. Did you know you were on the ballot?

00;08;03;15 - 00;08;30;16
Judge McMullen
And I said, yes, please vote for me. Because people don't realize that there are there is an appellate court, you know, you lay person, unless you're somehow involved in some litigation. They don't realize that there is another layer of courts that are here to protect their constitutional rights. And judges do matter. Your first tier judges matter.

00;08;30;16 - 00;08;52;00
Judge McMullen
Your second tier judges matter, and your your third tier judges, matter to theirs. And I just had one more thing I'd like to add to what we would like for the public to know about what we do. You know, a lot of the cases we deal with are really unpleasant, high profile criminal cases, especially in smaller communities.

00;08;52;03 - 00;09;15;29
Judge Ayers
And there's usually a lot of media coverage. And I think it's important for the public to know that our opinions are based solely on what is in the record and what came out at the trial court. So there might be facts and information out in the public that may or may not be true. You know, even just from sensationalized headlines in the media.

00;09;16;01 - 00;09;38;06
Judge Ayers
But our opinions are based on what is in the record, what did or did not come in at trial. What all of those specific facts are that came in at trial and then, as mentioned before, we're going to apply the law to those facts. So I think sometimes people misunderstand. They've seen these big headlines about what they think a case is about.

00;09;38;09 - 00;10;03;08
Judge Ayers
And our opinion, you know, may not be exactly about that because it may be about one nuanced issue, on a particular pretrial motion or something in the case. And so I think sometimes the public doesn't necessarily understand what we are reviewing. The specific issue we are reviewing, and, and how we apply the law to that. And I think if they read our cases, obviously our goal is to make sure they do understand that.

00;10;03;08 - 00;10;19;07
Judge Ayers
But that's not always come what comes out in the headlines when you see, you know, Court of Criminal Appeals, denies someone a new trial or grants a new trial. You know, they may not really understand the legal basis for that ruling.

00;10;19;13 - 00;10;28;13
Host
As criminal law continues to evolve and now involves new technologies and new situations. What challenges or changes do you see ahead for criminal court?

00;10;28;19 - 00;10;54;08
Judge McMullen
Oh my gosh, it's the big one. AI, I mean, you know, the the constant challenge with first, you know, lawyers utilizing I and I don't want to get on a big tangent, but I don't have a problem with lawyers using I as long as they check their work. Also I in the courtroom or social media in the courtroom.

00;10;54;08 - 00;11;21;05
Judge McMullen
What that means, what that looks like verifying where things are coming from, verifying the validity of things. Also, I replacing, you know, young lawyers because, you know, it's just a double edged sword. I think I, you know, I think it does make some lawyers, some small law firms more productive. But on the other hand, it's eliminating some jobs for young lawyers and, you know, making it more difficult for them to learn in the practice of so many things associated with AI.

00;11;21;07 - 00;11;23;27
Judge McMullen
That's that's a whole nother podcast, Nick.

00;11;23;29 - 00;11;50;20
Judge Dyer
I think that's the biggest hurdle on so many different levels that's getting ready to hit the court system. I mean, whether it's piece of evidence at trial and whether you can authenticate it or not to who's writing what and is what the writing, you know, did I make stuff up in writing that brief, too? I mean, there's just so many there's so much to that right now.

00;11;50;23 - 00;12;14;09
Judge McMullen
The court system is always catching up. We're behind, so we're catching, from what I'm hearing from lawyers who are on the front line, they're they're also these other, software packages that are coming out that are letting you that are basically alerting you that this is an AI product that you're reading. So, you know, it's not within the court system yet, but it's coming.

00;12;14;09 - 00;12;20;12
Judge McMullen
I mean, you know, it's coming and it's just going to be interesting to see how we how we manage that.

00;12;20;13 - 00;12;58;00
Judge Wedemeyer
The other thing in the criminal justice system, there's a lot of talk about, reform, as far as you know, we only have so much money to build prisons and staff prisons and, you know, there's a whole different topic, I guess, but maybe for a different day. But that is, how can we what, if anything, can we do to reform the criminal justice system as far as, the remedies, with regard to, what to do about the people who commit the crimes and what the punishment should be and that type of thing.

00;12;58;02 - 00;13;24;06
Judge Wedemeyer
It's going to be more and more challenging, I think, as we go forward. The man on the street might say, well, put him in prison and keep him there, as long as possible. And then in some cases, that may be the best thing, but, in general, we've had a challenging, ahead to try to figure out because if we do that, it's what we can't afford as a society.

00;13;24;06 - 00;13;31;08
Judge Wedemeyer
We can't really afford to do that. So some alternatives need to be out there need to be explored.

00;13;31;09 - 00;13;58;01
Judge McMullen
I think I would kind of piggyback on what Judge Whitmire was saying, but go in a little bit of a different direction to me, a bigger problem that we're going to see in the criminal justice system is the overworked, appointed attorney for criminal defendants and and the public defender's office. I know the Tennessee Supreme Court has worked tirelessly to get funds for indigent representation.

00;13;58;03 - 00;14;25;20
Judge McMullen
The more crime that we see, the more we are going to need lawyers who can handle, represent defendants in court. And, you know what we see? Honestly, Nick, a lot of times it's just poor lawyering, and and it's not because the lawyer is not a good lawyer. It's, you know, the majority of the time, it's because the lawyer is overworked and, and not paid well.

00;14;25;26 - 00;14;59;01
Judge McMullen
So one of the things that we will see and that we are seeing is, just the lack of resources for our appointed and, and, and public defender categories of lawyers. But there are reforms underway right now to bring in, other lawyers to take on appointed cases or a system to put a system in place to have lawyers, be on the ready to come in and handle, criminal representation because it's not something that you just pick up.

00;14;59;01 - 00;15;20;24
Judge McMullen
You have to learn how to do it. So when we bring, you know, lawyers in from, you know, civil, civil law, it it takes time to understand how to do criminal work. So, so that's one of the challenges that I see on the horizon. It's been a challenge in the past, but it's going to be an even greater challenge as, crime increases across the state.

00;15;20;25 - 00;15;26;20
Host
All right. Last question. What do you find most meaningful about serving on the Criminal Court of Appeals?

00;15;26;23 - 00;16;05;03
Judge Ayers
I mean, I just feel like it's an important service. I mean, all of us had lives before we came on the bench, whether that was the trial bench or straight to the appellate bench. And, you know, most of us were some in government service, but some in private practice. And so, when I chose to leave the private sector to come to the judicial system, I felt like it was important to take my years of experience and serve the public that way, with the fact that I think every case we deal with, I think in any judicial, I think any courtroom, but every case you deal with is so important to the people that

00;16;05;03 - 00;16;31;06
Judge Ayers
are the litigants there, whether it's a defendant or a victim or just viewing criminal cases, the public at large. You know, I feel like we do, our best, as a group to, to serve the public and to, just ensure that we follow the law and, you know, make sure justice is done fairly on both sides, of a case.

00;16;31;06 - 00;16;39;21
Judge Ayers
So, it's a it's a real privilege. And an honor to be able to serve, in this capacity for the state of Tennessee.

00;16;39;24 - 00;17;02;04
Judge Dyer
To die for. I think everybody who comes to this court comes, believing they have something to offer, that they have a skill set, and clearly comes with a desire to serve the public, serve your state, however you want to look at that. And I find that I, I would say in a lot of ways, I find that very rewarding.

00;17;02;04 - 00;17;28;04
Judge Dyer
It's we've talked around and about, you know, politics, so to speak. And generally tomorrow's said a lot. You know, this court is not that way. And and so I find it very rewarding that you have 12 that I get to work with 11 people who really are all here kind of under, the common goal of wanting to serve, wanting to do the right thing, feeling they have a skill set, which all of them do.

00;17;28;06 - 00;17;51;00
Judge Dyer
That is valuable. And you know that that's probably the most rewarding part of this and the privilege to do it. You know, our, our, our former one of our former presiding judges, John Everett Williams, used to say the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals is the best, not only the best job in the state, it's the best job in the country.

00;17;51;02 - 00;18;03;28
Judge Dyer
And and he's right. And I think that's the reason why it's the group of people you get to work with who all, at the end of the day, are focused on the set, a common goal of of trying to do the right thing and serve their state.

00;18;04;05 - 00;18;10;00
Judge Wedemeyer
Truly an honor to serve on this court with these great people. So thank you.

00;18;10;02 - 00;18;20;29
Host
Thank you all for joining me on this discussion. Shedding more light on how the appellate system works on the criminal level in Tennessee. Tennessee court talk episodes can be found wherever you find.

00;18;20;29 - 00;18;22;05
Host
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