[1] Until the ratification of the constitutional amendment in 2014, when a vacancy occurred, the Judicial Nominating Commission accepted applications from any qualified Tennessee lawyer.
[2] Until its dissolution in 2014, the 12-member Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission reviewed the record of incumbent judges and published its findings approximately six weeks before the retention elections.
The 2006 report endorsed all of the incumbent judges seeking reelection, most unanimously and none by a margin of less than 8-3; one member appointed to the review panel at this time was unable to serve.
Two years later, the Democratic majority in the Legislature was alarmed that Republican Governor Winfield Dunn was going to be able to appoint all five Supreme Court justices when their eight-year terms expired in 1974, meaning that they would subsequently face the voters as incumbents.
The Legislature passed a bill to exempt the Supreme Court from the Modified Missouri Plan and return it to popular election, but it was vetoed by Governor Dunn.
The other amendments under consideration at the time were primarily of a technical nature, serving mostly to remove obsolete language, such as clauses forbidding interracial marriage and requiring public school segregation, which had long been rendered totally invalid by prior federal judicial decisions, and all were approved by large majorities.
Under the Tennessee Plan, one judge (State Supreme Court Justice Penny White) was removed in 1996.
She was highly rated by the Evaluation Commission, but her opinion in a death penalty case became controversial, and this was played up by those opposing her reconfirmation.
Criticism of the plan centers on the creation of a self-perpetuating system of selection in which the public at large is in effect shut out of meaningful decision-making.
This question was adjudicated by a special Supreme Court in a case filed by political gadfly John Jay Hooker.
The regular members of the Supreme Court recused themselves from the case as interested parties since they had been selected under the provisions in question.
The special court found the process to be fully compliant with applicable provisions of the state constitution.
The Judicial Selection Commission was sunseted as of June 30, 2013; however, a new 17-member body consisting of many of the members of the former commission, but several new appointees, assists Governor Bill Haslam in appointing persons to judicial vacancies until an amendment to the state Constitution specifically authorizing the Tennessee Plan was voted on in the November 2014 general election.