Future attorneys attending the Nashville School of Law will have an opportunity to hear oral arguments in three Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals cases without leaving campus.
A three-member panel of the Court of Criminal Appeals, with Judge Jerry Smith presiding, will sit at 6 p.m. Sept. 18 in an appellate courtroom at the law school. Judges David G. Hayes and Thomas T. Woodall also are on the panel. The 12-member intermediate appellate court normally sits in panels of three in Nashville, Jackson and Knoxville to hear post-conviction petitions and trial court appeals in felony and misdemeanor cases.
“The primary purpose of having an evening court session at the Nashville School of Law is to give the most students possible an opportunity to observe appellate court proceedings,” Smith said. “Not only will some of the law school students be in the courtroom, but others will watch the proceedings from their classrooms via closed circuit television.”
Smith said Woodall “should be congratulated for putting this program together.”
The cases students will hear involve appeals of criminal convictions for statutory rape, criminal exposure to HIV, sexual exploitation of a minor, arson, vandalism, attempted murder, kidnapping, burglary and theft.
The night law school was started in 1911 by four Vanderbilt law graduates. The school’s dean, Joe C. Loser, Jr., is a 1959 graduate and was a circuit court judge for two decades. In 2005, the former YMCA Night Law School moved to a new 33,000-square-foot facility.
Appellate court dockets are posted on the court system website at www.tncourts.gov.