Sources: Sixth Circuit Court slot coming open

Middle Tennessee member of court to take senior status in January

Email | Print By Ken Whitehouse

Martha Craig Daughtrey

Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will take senior judge status on Jan. 1, sources have told NashvillePost.com.

Known simply in the legal community as "the Sixth Circuit," the court is a 16-member judicial panel based in Cincinnati that covers the states of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee in the federal appellate process.

With Daughtrey's move to senior judge status, president-elect Barack Obama will appoint a replacement for what is arguably the most coveted and prestigious legal job in the state. Sources say that because there are already multiple members on the court from West Tennessee, the position will likely be filled by someone from either East or Middle Tennessee.

Daughtrey was nominated to the court by then-President Bill Clinton on Aug. 6, 1993 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate that November. She began serving on the panel Dec. 6 of that year.

Breaking barriers throughout her career, Daughtrey became the first woman appointed to the faculty of Vanderbilt University School of Law, serving as an assistant professor from 1972 until 1975. In 1975, she was appointed as a judge on the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals.

She served there until 1990, when she became an associate justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court. She was the first woman on both the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals and the Tennessee Supreme Court.

When the Sixth Circuit slot officially becomes open in January, Tennessee lawyers and jurists will get to jockey for that position along with a spot on the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee, another highly coveted position.