[3] That same year, he was appointed attorney general for the Sixth Judicial District (based in Lebanon) by Governor Sam Houston.

[1] In 1844, he was the Whig elector for Tennessee's at-large district, and as such, canvassed the state for unsuccessful presidential candidate Henry Clay.

In 1854, after the state constitution was amended to allow popular election of justices, Caruthers won reelection to the court.

[1] One of Caruthers' most important decisions on the court was his opinion in Rippy v. State (1858), which involved killing in self-defense.

In this decision, he rejected a literal interpretation of a statement in Judge John Catron's opinion in Grainger v. State, issued three decades earlier, that suggested a person did not need sufficient grounds to kill in self-defense, but merely needed to testify that there was imminent danger.

[8] Caruthers was officially elected on August 6,[9] but the state constitution required that the governor-elect take the oath of office before the General Assembly.

Since the Union Army controlled most of Middle and West Tennessee at this time, the Assembly was unable to convene, and Caruthers never officially took office.

[11][12] The school, which had an initial enrollment of seven students, held its first classes in Robert Caruthers' law office.

[11] During the Civil War, Nathan Green, Jr., whose father had been succeeded by Robert Caruthers on the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1852, managed to keep the school open.

[11] In 1878, in memory of his brother, Abraham, he funded the construction of Caruthers Hall, which housed the law school for several decades.