How do judges of the Supreme Court of Tennessee reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Supreme Court of Tennessee / Joined 1990 / Served to 1993

Martha Craig Daughtrey

Justice, Supreme Court of Tennessee

Martha Craig Daughtrey was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, who joined the court in 1990. She earned a law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1964. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1942 · age 84
Tenure: 1990–1993 · 3 yrs
Education: Vanderbilt 1964 · Vanderbilt

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1990	Supreme Court of Tennessee	–	–

Education

Vanderbilt University	B.A.	1964
Vanderbilt University	J.D.	1968

Judicial Record

In our data, Daughtrey authored 30 published opinions for the court (1990–1993), plus 8 dissents and 6 concurrences. Most cited: State v. Ballard (786 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 44 of these were attributed to Daughtrey by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1993	State v. Ballard· Concurrence†	855 S.W.2d 557	786
1992	Burford v. State· Concurrence†	845 S.W.2d 204	640
1993	State v. Smith· Concurrence†	868 S.W.2d 561	479
1993	State v. Caughron· Dissent†	855 S.W.2d 526	310
1993	State v. Van Tran· Dissent†	864 S.W.2d 465	288
1993	Kilpatrick v. Bryant· Concurrence†	868 S.W.2d 594	241
1993	State v. Smith· Concurrence†	857 S.W.2d 1	234
1992	Doe v. Linder Const. Co., Inc.· Dissent†	845 S.W.2d 173	226
1993	Taylor v. Taylor†	849 S.W.2d 319	157
1993	State v. Branam†	855 S.W.2d 563	91
1991	Isbell v. Isbell†	816 S.W.2d 735	85
1991	Higgins v. Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union, Local 3-677†	811 S.W.2d 875	81
1991	State v. Hodges· Dissent†	815 S.W.2d 151	72
1992	State v. Harris· Dissent†	844 S.W.2d 601	59
1991	Barker v. Heekin Can Co.†	804 S.W.2d 442	21

Showing the 15 most-cited of 44 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Supreme Court of Tennessee reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was Martha Craig Daughtrey on?: Martha Craig Daughtrey was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

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3 years on the Supreme Court of Tennessee. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).