Edward Riley Anderson (August 10, 1932 – July 4, 2018) was an American attorney, politician, and

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

who served as Chief Justice of the

Tennessee Supreme Court The Tennessee Supreme Court is the ultimate judicial tribunal of the state of Tennessee. Roger A. Page is the Chief Justice. Unlike other states, in which the state attorney general is directly elected or appointed by the governor or state le ...

from 1990 to 2006.

Early life and education

Born in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

, Anderson a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

and

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

. He graduated from the Appellate Judges Program in 1988 and from the Advanced Appellate Judges Program in 1999 at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Career

He practiced private law in Oak Ridge, Tennessee from 1958 to 1987. He was elected the charter commissioner of the city of Oak Ridge and served from 1962 to 1964. He was appointed to the Court of Appeals on March 2, 1987 and elected in August 1988. In August 1990, Anderson became one of the last

members to enter office through an

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

, rather than being appointed by the governor and subject to a subsequent vote on retention. He was re-elected to the Supreme Court in August 1998. He served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from October 1994 to May 1996, from July 1997 to August 1998, and from September 1998 to August 2001. During Anderson's time as Chief Justice, the Supreme Court passed a rule allowing the media to bring cameras into courtrooms. He worked on and wrote more than 3,000 appellate court decisions during his judicial career. On January 25, 2006, E. Riley Anderson announced that he would retire from the Supreme Court on August 31 of that year. However, when it became apparent that

Governor of Tennessee The governor of Tennessee is the head of government of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The governor is the only official in Tennessee state government who is directly elected by the voters of the entire state. The current governor is Bill Lee, a ...

Phil Bredesen Philip Norman Bredesen Jr. (born November 21, 1943) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 48th governor of Tennessee from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was elected in 20 ...

and the judicial selection commission created under the

Tennessee Plan The Tennessee Plan is a system used to appoint and elect appellate court judges in Tennessee. It is largely patterned after the Missouri Plan, and an earlier version in Tennessee was called the Modified Missouri Plan. At the next general election ...

were not going to be able to agree upon two nominees to replace Anderson and fellow retiring justice A. A. Birch Jr., Anderson agreed to continue his service on an interim basis until a successor could be named and qualified. Anderson was also president of the Anderson County Bar Association, of the Tennessee Defense Lawyers Association, of the Tennessee Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, and of the Hamilton Burnett American Inn of Court. He was also a member of the Board of Delegates of the Tennessee Bar Association. Between 1990 and 1995, he served as the chair of the Tennessee Judicial Council. Anderson served as chair of the Select Senate/House Committee on Court Automation between 1990 and 1994. In 1998 and 1999 he was vice-chair of the Courts, Children and the Family Committee of the

Conference of Chief Justices The Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) was created in 1949 after the need for an organization composed of the states' and territories' top jurists was amply discussed at the American Bar Association and other juridical organizations. The first mee ...

, an organization whose membership is composed of the highest judicial officers of

U.S. states In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

, the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, and certain territories. In 1999 and 2000, he was on the

Board of Directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the Conference of Chief Justices.

References

*¹''

The Tennessean ''The Tennessean'' (known until 1972 as ''The Nashville Tennessean'') is a daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett, ...

'', August 27, 2006 *''

Tennessee Blue Book The ''Tennessee Blue Book'' is an official government manual for the U.S. state of Tennessee, published by the Secretary of State of Tennessee. The ''Blue Book'' is typically published on a biennial basis. Its contents include details on the organ ...

'', 2005–2006 edition, p. 285

External links

*
E. Riley Anderson retires from the Tennessee Supreme Court
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, E. Riley 1932 births 2018 deaths Lawyers from Chattanooga, Tennessee Chief Justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court University of Tennessee alumni People from Oak Ridge, Tennessee 20th-century American judges 20th-century American lawyers