January 12, 1999

Judge Patricia Hess
Juvenile Court
Anderson County Courthouse
Clinton, TN 37716

Dear Judge Hess,

This letter is an effort to make clear my position with respect to furnishing a prosecuting attorney in Juvenile Court proceedings in view of your "Order" of January 11, 1999, given to Assistant District Attorneys on that date.

As I read the law, TCA 37-1-124 allows you to "request" me to present evidence in support of a petition and otherwise proceed in Juvenile Court. TCA 8-7-103(6) is a superseding statute enacted May, 1998, and gives me discretion to decline such "request", "any other provision of law notwithstanding", in my sole discretion with respect to allocation of the limited resources available to me; the Juvenile Court has no authority to order me to appear and prosecute.

As the situation presently stands, I am compelled to seek appellate review of the order of January 11, 1999 unless it is withdrawn by the Juvenile Court. I will file for such review at 9:00 a.m. Monday, January 17, 1999.

As far as petitions being filed in Juvenile Court in the interim are concerned, I will respond to each and every individual "request" made by the Juvenile Court. Since this might be an inefficient and cumbersome way of proceeding, I am willing to meet with you at our mutual convenience to discuss an efficient administrative method of handling the appearance of attorneys from my office in Juvenile Court.

Basically, at this time, our resources and the requirements of the State Criminal and County Sessions Courts placed on our office are such that I can assign an assistant district attorney each Wednesday (when Juvenile Court has a docket) for the court day 9:00 a.m. until 4:40 p.m. including appropriate lunch break. This is one-attorney-day per week, which I consider reasonable and adequate to handle serious juvenile offenses. I simply do not have the resources to do a Monday docket too without neglecting other courts and more serious matters. I am directing police officers to charge adults in Sessions Court, whenever Sessions Court has concurrent jurisdiction with Juvenile Court since our attorneys must be in Sessions Court four days per week anyway. We will not routinely be prosecuting minors for truancy and status offenses because we must prioritize with limited resources.

Very truly yours,

James N. Ramsey
District Attorney General

JNR/tg