Can the Tennessee General Assembly split a single county into two separate judicial districts? And if so, can those districts share the same courthouse or jail?

Subject

Establishment of Separate Judicial Districts Within a County

Plain-English summary

Tennessee currently divides itself into 32 judicial districts, with each district covering one county or a group of counties. A state senator (representing Shelby County, which sits at the heart of historical debates about whether Memphis should be its own judicial district) asked whether the General Assembly can constitutionally split a single county into two separate districts, and whether two districts within one county can share buildings.

The AG answers yes to the splitting question. Article VI, Section 1 of the Tennessee Constitution gives the General Assembly the power to "ordain and establish" inferior courts, and nothing in the constitution requires district lines to follow county lines. The legislature is free to redraw the map. The AG does flag three constitutional guardrails: judges must be elected by the voters of their district (Article VI, Section 4), each criminal-jurisdiction district must elect its own district attorney (Article VI, Section 5), and the county seat cannot be moved without two-thirds voter approval (Article X, Section 4).

On infrastructure sharing, the answer is split. Sharing a jail across districts is fine. Sharing a courthouse is harder. The Tennessee Supreme Court's recent decision in McNabb v. Harrison (2025) read "district" in Article VI, Section 4 as meaning the geographic area in which a court has jurisdiction. That implies a judge should hold court within their own district. A courthouse located in only one of two sub-county districts would put one set of judges in territory beyond their own. The AG suggests creative workarounds (a courthouse straddling the line, separate courthouses in the same municipality, or maintaining the county-seat courthouse while establishing a second court elsewhere as in Ellis v. State).

What this means for you

For state legislators considering judicial redistricting

You have constitutional room to maneuver, but the redesign requires care. Three constitutional checkpoints:

1. Judges must be elected by district voters (Article VI, Section 4).
2. Each district with criminal jurisdiction must have its own elected district attorney (Article VI, Section 5; Tenn. Att'y Gen. Ops. 96-023, 04-171).
3. You cannot use redistricting as an indirect way to move a county seat without the two-thirds voter approval required by Article X, Section 4.

Beyond constitutional questions, the opinion warns that Tennessee's existing statutes and rules presuppose districts that are coterminous with counties. § 16-2-505(d) (court security committees), § 16-2-510(a) ("court shall be held in each county within the district"), § 27-5-108 (general sessions appeals to "the circuit court of the county"), Tenn. R. Crim. P. 6 (county-wide grand juries), and many others would need conforming amendments. A "more fulsome legislative project" is required for a clean transition.

For county commissioners and county seats

If the legislature splits your county into two districts, the constitution still protects your county seat against indirect removal. You retain the right to a courthouse there. The opinion sketches several workable designs: separate courthouses in the same municipality, a courthouse straddling the district line, or maintaining the existing courthouse as primary while authorizing a secondary court elsewhere.

For district attorneys general

Splitting a county into two criminal-jurisdiction districts requires electing a separate DA for each. There is no constitutional path to running both districts under one DA's office. This is a hard rule.

For sitting judges in a potentially split county

A redistricting bill would have to address how your existing election translates to the new district. The AG cites historical authority that "temporary inconsistency" is tolerable during a transition (The Judges' Cases) but "permanent" placement of voters under a judge they did not elect is unconstitutional (Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 87-163). Plan for transitional rules in any redistricting bill.

For lawyers practicing in a split county

Many statutes presume that judicial districts equal counties. Until those are amended, expect litigation over which court hears which kind of case, where appeals go, and how grand juries are organized. Track legislative amendments to § 16-2-510, § 27-5-108, § 4-5-322 (administrative venue), and the Rules of Criminal Procedure.

For citizens debating Memphis-specific or Shelby-specific reform

The constitutional question is settled: yes, the General Assembly can do it. The political question is whether the General Assembly will do it. The AG opinion sets out the legal framework but takes no position on policy.

Common questions

Why does the General Assembly have this power?

The Tennessee Constitution vests "judicial power" in the Supreme Court and "such Circuit, Chancery and other inferior Courts as the Legislature shall from time to time, ordain and establish." Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 1. The Tennessee Supreme Court has long held this gives the legislature exclusive authority to create and structure inferior courts.

Has Tennessee ever had a split-county district?

The current 32-district scheme dates to 1984. Within the modern era, all districts have been coterminous with counties. The opinion notes that this was a legislative choice, not a constitutional command.

What does McNabb v. Harrison say?

McNabb (2025) interpreted "district" in Article VI, Section 4 to mean the geographic territory in which a court has jurisdiction. That phrase informs the AG's view that a judge's courtroom presence outside the district may create constitutional friction.

Can a single courthouse really not house judges from two districts?

The AG's analysis is that doing so would have judges holding court "in territory beyond their own," which McNabb's reading of "district" does not contemplate. The AG suggests that a courthouse straddling the district line, or a building with each judge's courtroom assigned to the appropriate district, could solve this. The opinion expressly notes that a 1996 AG opinion approved single-location infrastructure but says that opinion predates McNabb and may be outdated.

What about the Home Rule Amendment in Article XI, Section 9?

The Home Rule Amendment limits state laws affecting only one county. But the Tennessee Supreme Court has held that the state's general judicial system falls outside Home Rule's reach. State ex rel. Cheeks v. Rollings; City of Knoxville ex rel. Roach v. Dossett.

Can a county seat be moved as part of redistricting?

Only with two-thirds voter approval. Tenn. Const. art. X, § 4; Stuart v. Bair. The constitution restricts both direct and indirect attempts to remove a county seat.

What happens to grand juries in a split county?

Open question. The Rules of Criminal Procedure currently structure grand juries county-wide. The AG suggests the rules would need amendment, since a county-wide grand jury working "within the aegis of" multiple criminal courts in different districts produces "operational tension." Coordination with the Tennessee Supreme Court would be needed (Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 1; Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-3-501).

Are there other states that split counties this way?

The opinion does not survey other states. The Tennessee Constitution leaves the design open, and prior AG opinions have agreed. Tenn. Att'y Gen. Ops. 96-023, 04-171, 07-120.

Background and statutory framework

The constitutional framework

Article VI, Section 1: judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court and "such Circuit, Chancery and other inferior Courts as the Legislature shall from time to time, ordain and establish." This gives the General Assembly exclusive authority over inferior courts.

Article VI, Section 4: judges of inferior courts "shall be elected by the qualified voters of the district or circuit to which they are to be assigned." Voters in the new districts would elect their respective judges.

Article VI, Section 5: an "Attorney for the State" (the district attorney) for any criminal-jurisdiction district "shall be elected by the qualified voters of such circuit or district." Two criminal districts in one county means two elected DAs.

Article X, Section 4: the "Seat of Justice" of any county shall not be removed "without the concurrence of two-thirds of the qualified voters of the County."

Article XI, Section 9 (Home Rule): does not limit the state's authority over the general judicial system. Cheeks; Dossett.

Existing district structure and supporting statutes

§ 16-2-501: 1984 redistricting purpose statement.
§ 16-2-506: 32-district map.
§ 16-2-505(d): court security committees by county.
§ 16-2-508(b): assistant district attorney positions per district.
§ 16-2-510(a): court "shall be held in each county within the district."
§ 16-15-101(a), § 16-15-503: general sessions courts are organized "for each county."
§ 27-5-108: general sessions appeals go to "the circuit court of the county."
§ 4-5-322: administrative venue (in Davidson County or county of residence).
Tenn. R. Crim. P. 6: county-wide grand juries.
Tenn. R. Crim. P. 18: venue.

The AG warns that these statutes "presuppose that districts comprise one or more entire counties." A redistricting bill must amend them to avoid "uncertainty and disarray" in local judicial machinery.

McNabb v. Harrison and infrastructure sharing

McNabb v. Harrison, 710 S.W.3d 653 (Tenn. 2025), interpreted "district" in Article VI, Section 4 to mean the geographic territory in which a court has jurisdiction. This reading suggests that judges should generally hold court within their own districts. A shared courthouse located in only one of two sub-county districts would put judges from the other district outside their territory.

The AG offers three workable designs: a courthouse straddling the district line, separate courthouses in the same municipality, or a primary courthouse at the existing county seat plus a secondary court elsewhere (the Ellis v. State pattern). The opinion notes its own 1996 opinion (96-023) approved a single-location arrangement but cautions that 96-023 predates McNabb.

Sharing a jail across districts is constitutionally fine. Tennessee already allows interlocal jail-sharing arrangements between different counties under § 41-4-141 and § 41-4-121.

Transitional flexibility

The Tennessee Supreme Court in The Judges' Cases acknowledged that redistricting can "result in placing the people of the county so transferred temporarily under the jurisdiction of a judge in whose election they have had no voice." That is constitutionally tolerable on a transitional basis. AG Op. 87-163 cautioned that such situations cannot exist "permanently."

Citations

• Tenn. Const. art. VI, §§ 1, 4, 5 (judicial power, election of judges, election of DAs)
• Tenn. Const. art. X, § 4 (county seat protection)
• Tenn. Const. art. XI, § 9 (Home Rule)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-2-501, -506 (judicial districts)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-2-505(d), -508(b), -510(a) (district administration)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-15-101(a), -503 (general sessions courts)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 27-5-108 (general sessions appeals)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 17-1-203 (interchange of judges)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 41-4-121, -141 (jail interlocal cooperation)
• Tenn. R. Crim. P. 6, 18 (grand juries, venue)
• McNabb v. Harrison, 710 S.W.3d 653 (Tenn. 2025)
• The Judges' Cases, 102 Tenn. 509, 53 S.W. 134 (1899)
• Ellis v. State, 92 Tenn. 85, 20 S.W. 500 (1892)
• Lawson v. Ray, 549 S.W.2d 373 (Tenn. 1977)
• Stuart v. Bair, 67 Tenn. 141 (1874)
• State ex rel. Cheeks v. Rollings, 202 Tenn. 608 (1957)
• City of Knoxville ex rel. Roach v. Dossett, 672 S.W.2d 193 (Tenn. 1984)
• State v. Penley, 67 S.W.3d 828 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2001)
• Eye Clinic v. Jackson-Madison County Gen. Hosp., 986 S.W.2d 565 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998)
• Tenn. Att'y Gen. Ops. 87-163, 96-023, 04-171, 07-120, 18-33

Source

• Landing page: https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/opinions.html
• Original PDF: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/ops/2025/op25-020.pdf

Original opinion text

STATE OF TENNESSEE
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
December 16, 2025
Opinion No. 25-020

Establishment of Separate Judicial Districts Within a County

Question 1
Under the Tennessee Constitution, may a county be split into two separate judicial districts?

Opinion 1
Yes. The General Assembly has the authority to establish inferior courts, determine their jurisdiction, and allocate judicial power among them. We discern no constitutional bar to establishing separate judicial districts within a single county.

Question 2
If a county can be split into two separate judicial districts, can the districts share the same infrastructure such as a courthouse or jail?

Opinion 2
It might be possible for multiple judicial districts in the same county to share a courthouse, but doing so would involve a number of jurisdictional and logistical wrinkles that would have to be carefully negotiated. We do not perceive any limitation on two districts in the same county sharing a jail.

ANALYSIS

Under the Tennessee Constitution, the State's judicial power "shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such Circuit, Chancery and other inferior Courts as the Legislature shall from time to time, ordain and establish." Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 1. This Office has previously explained that the effect of this provision "is to confer exclusive authority on the Legislature to create and establish inferior courts in Tennessee." Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 18-33 (July 30, 2018). And we have further noted that "[t]he constitutional authority vested in the Legislature to establish inferior courts includes the authority to determine the jurisdiction of those courts and to allocate the judicial power among them."

The Tennessee General Assembly has exercised its constitutional authority by dividing the State into thirty-two judicial districts, delineating each district by county or set of counties. Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-2-506. But we are aware of no authority that requires judicial district boundaries to overlap with county boundaries. Subject to certain qualifications discussed below, we therefore believe that the General Assembly has authority to split a county into separate judicial districts.

1. The modern-day judicial districts of Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-2-506 are of relatively recent vintage. McNabb v. Harrison, 710 S.W.3d 653, 661 (Tenn. 2025). The current system originates from a 1984 judicial-redistricting law that affected the entire State. Although the General Assembly organizes judicial districts congruent with county lines, we see nothing in the Tennessee Constitution that mandates such an organizing principle. The Tennessee Constitution simply provides that the State's judicial power "shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such Circuit, Chancery and other inferior Courts as the Legislature shall from time to time, ordain and establish." There is nothing in the text that would prohibit the General Assembly from creating separate judicial districts within a single county.

To be sure, there are certain requirements as to how the General Assembly might choose to organize the State's justice system. Under Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 4, for instance, it is constitutionally mandated that inferior court judges "be elected by the qualified voters of the district or circuit to which they are to be assigned." Under the Tennessee Constitution, the delineation of judicial districts is an exclusively legislative prerogative.

While the General Assembly has discretion in determining the boundaries of judicial districts, the Tennessee Constitution requires that inferior court judges be subject to election by the qualified voters of the district or circuit to which they are to be assigned. Moreover, should the General Assembly allocate criminal jurisdiction to multiple districts within one county, legislators should be mindful of Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 5. This section provides that an "Attorney for the State for any circuit or district, for which a Judge having criminal jurisdiction shall be provided by law, shall be elected by the qualified voters of such circuit or district."

Beyond the requirements of Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 4 and Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 5, any redistricting effort would be constrained also by Tenn. Const. art. X, § 4. In pertinent part, that section provides that the "Seat of Justice" of any county shall not be removed "without the concurrence of two-thirds of the qualified voters of the County." This provision does not serve as an absolute bar to the establishment of a court outside the county seat so long as courts at the county seat retain jurisdiction over the portion of the county that includes the county seat. See generally Ellis v. State, 92 Tenn. 85, 20 S.W. 500, 501-03 (1892).

In splitting a county into multiple districts, however, it would be prudent for the General Assembly to consider how the application of other Tennessee statutes could be impacted lest collateral litigation throw the local judicial machinery into uncertainty and disarray. Many statutes and rules presuppose that districts comprise one or more entire counties. Should the General Assembly determine that judicial district boundaries should depart from county boundaries, the best approach for a clean transition to such a model would require a more fulsome legislative project.

In summary, although there are several considerations, constitutional and otherwise, that legislators should be aware of if pursuing this course of action, we are of the opinion that the General Assembly has the authority to split a county into two separate judicial districts.

2. Your second question asks whether these separate judicial districts can share the same infrastructure. We think that the answer to this question ultimately depends on what type of use might be implicated by the sharing of infrastructure. We do not, for instance, discern any constitutional prohibition on a jail housing criminal defendants from separate judicial districts. But we do anticipate constitutional complications arising from a design that houses judges from separate districts in a single courthouse or justice complex.

This concern is fueled by the Supreme Court of Tennessee's recent interpretation of Tenn. Const. art. VI, § 4. As noted earlier, that provision mandates that inferior court judges "be elected by the qualified voters of the district or circuit to which they are to be assigned." In McNabb, the Supreme Court explained that the "district" of constitutional parlance is the geographic territory in which a court has jurisdiction. 710 S.W.3d at 662-63. One plausible reading of this language is that, in being assigned to a district, an elected judge will also exercise jurisdiction from within it. Contrary to such an expectation, the sharing of a courthouse or justice complex by the judges of more than one district probably means that some judges would hold court in territory beyond their own.

In light of the General Assembly's clear authority to delineate judicial districts, and although the crafting of specific details is obviously beyond this Office's purview, there is more than one pathway to implement sub-county districts. For instance, assuming a district line bisects an existing county seat, multiple courthouses could be established in the same municipality, with each district's courts respectively housed in their respective district. Alternatively, there is precedent to support maintaining a courthouse in the county seat and establishing another court elsewhere in the county. See Ellis, 92 Tenn. 85, 20 S.W. at 501-03. Creative legislators could even draw the district line through a courthouse, or build a courthouse on the line, so that all the judges were in one courthouse and each had a courtroom in their appropriate district.

In summary, sharing courthouse infrastructure could be complicated but not necessarily unconstitutional, while multiple districts sharing one county jail does not appear to create any constitutional problems at all.

JONATHAN SKRMETTI
Attorney General and Reporter

JAMES P. URBAN
Senior Deputy Attorney General

MATTHEW KERNODLE
Assistant Attorney General

Requested by:
The Honorable Brent Taylor
State Senator
Suite 714 Cordell Hull Bldg.
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