It took nearly five hours of public interviews for the Governor’s Council for Judicial Appointments to select three finalists to fill the seat Judge Rebecca Stern will vacate when she retires to Puerto Rico on June 1.
Eleven council members from across the state and a variety of legal backgrounds chose Deputy Public Defender Mike Little, Assistant District Attorney Leslie Longshore and Assistant District Attorney Boyd Patterson. Gov. Bill Haslam will now have the final word.
It’s one of the earliest instances of a judicial appointment made by the new process instituted by Haslam.
Judge Rebecca Stern speaks speaks from the bench in this file photograph from 2013.Seven candidates were vying for the open position when interviews began at the Read House on Thursday morning.
Red Bank City Judge Johnny Houston, Soddy-Daisy City Judge Marty Lasley and private defense attorneys Samuel Robinson III and John McDougall joined Longshore, Patterson and Little for public interviews. Each had already completed a lengthy application and been interviewed individually by a panelist.