Local lawsuit will be heard by TN Supreme Court
Local lawsuit will be heard by state Supreme Court
A lawsuit filed by the cities of Milan and Trenton against the office of 28th Judicial District Attorney General Frederick Agee will appear on the docket of the Tennessee Supreme Court sometime next year.
In 2022, the governing bodies of Milan and Trenton both voted to file suit against DAG Agee’s office regard his decision to stop prosecuting cases in the cities’ municipal courts. Agee has maintained that Tennessee Code Annotated requires the cities to provide his office with funding or personnel to prosecute those cases.
Since the lawsuits were filed, two lower courts have ruled in favor of the cities, but DAG Agee recently appealed the second ruling, petitioning the Tennessee Supreme Court to hear the case.
According to DAG Agee, both sides will have the opportunity to brief the court on their positions and oral arguments will likely begin in late summer or fall of 2026.
“It’s a real honor for the Tennessee Supreme Court to select this case to be considered by the Honorable Justices, who only choose a limited number of appellate cases to hear annually after reviewing hundreds of applications,” said DAG Agee. “Attorneys have reached out to me concerned with the language and reasoning of the Court of Appeals Opinion. This case is strictly about the law, and we hope the Honorable Justices will focus their legal analysis on the law.”
“Since Gibson County already has a General Sessions Court comprised of two weekly sessions, we believe the Milan and Trenton Municipal Courts with General Sessions Jurisdiction, created under private acts and not constitutionally mandated, are duplicative and therefore a waste of local government spending. However, our Office continues to serve these Courts, even though it burdens our staff, who would more efficiently handle the same cases in the existing Gibson County General Sessions Court. We also receive no funding from Milan or Trenton to support our Office which is responsible for prosecuting the most violent and dangerous people in our communities,” DAG Agee said.
