| THE QUICK ANSWER
For years, Nashville’s legal community whispered that a veteran criminal-court judge could no longer reliably do the job after a 2021 stroke. The court records describing it were sealed, in some cases without the written order the rules require, and kept sealed for roughly two years. In May 2026 the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously ordered them unsealed. This National Edition is about that secrecy, and the cost it imposed on the people who stood trial before her, not about the judge’s health. |
| CASE FILE AT A GLANCE | |
| Judge | Hon. Cheryl Blackburn (retired) |
| Court | Criminal Court, Davidson County — Nashville, Tennessee |
| At Issue | A judge’s alleged post-stroke decline, and a court sealing the records that described it |
| Key Ruling | Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously ordered the records unsealed (May 21, 2026) |
| Records Public | June 3, 2026 |
| Edition | National Edition — out-of-state |
| NATIONAL EDITION — A NOTE ON WHERE THE SHAME BELONGS
The Gavel of Shame usually reads Texas discipline files. This entry comes from Tennessee, and it comes with a caveat about its own title. There is no shame in a stroke, and none in the decline that can follow one. Cheryl Blackburn gave Nashville nearly three decades on the criminal bench and was, by the accounts of lawyers who tried cases in front of her, an admired and formidable judge. The shame in this file belongs elsewhere: to the secrecy that hid a judge’s deterioration from the public, to a court that sealed the evidence without following its own rules, and to the cost all of it imposed on the people who stood trial before her. The descriptions of her decline below come from court records the Tennessee Supreme Court ordered unsealed and from conduct lawyers and reporters witnessed in open court. They are allegations and observations, not a diagnosis of ours. |
On June 3, 2026, after a two-year legal fight, the public finally got to read what Nashville’s legal community had spent years whispering about: sworn court filings describing a veteran criminal-court judge who, after a 2021 stroke, allegedly could no longer reliably perform the basic functions of the job and a court that worked to keep that hidden.
Judge Cheryl Blackburn had already retired by the time the records came out. What makes this a Gavel of Shame file is not her health. It is everything the system did to bury the question and what that secrecy cost the people whose cases she decided.
What the Unsealed Files Describe
The records made public are a motion to disqualify Blackburn, filed in 2024 by defense attorneys Bernie McEvoy and Melanie Bean, and two sworn affidavits supporting it. The motion cited what the lawyers called Blackburn’s “apparent cognitive impairment.” It was built from interviews with at least seven attorneys and, the filing says, generally confirmed by members of the District Attorney’s office which was a rare instance of both sides of the bar quietly agreeing on something.
The picture the filings paint is specific and, in places, hard to read. Lawyers reported that Blackburn struggled to follow legal arguments both complex and simple, could not give extemporaneous rulings, and grew confused and irritable on the bench. Reporters who attended a 2024 murder trial watched her stumble over words, mix up names, and appear to fall asleep. An attorney described jury instructions she read aloud as “word soup.” At one point, the filings say, she asked lawyers to refile motions using names instead of initials because she was having trouble tracking “who was who.”
It is important to be precise about what these records are. They are allegations and firsthand observations but not findings. The Tennessee Supreme Court decided only that the documents should be public; it never ruled on whether the underlying claims were true. Much of the conduct, however, was witnessed directly in open court, which is part of why so many lawyers reached the same conclusion.
The attorneys who filed the motion went out of their way to explain why they did. They wrote that they were “mindful of the gravity of this motion to an otherwise lengthy and esteemed career,” and that they had weighed that concern “against the gravity of the rights of the accused.” That is exactly the right frame, and it is the one we are using here.
The Real Misconduct Was the Secrecy
If the story were only that a judge declined after a serious illness, it would be a private sadness, not a public file. What turns it into one is what the court did next. According to the unsealed motion, Blackburn’s court took concrete steps to keep the public and media from observing what was happening: staff limited who could enter the courtroom, barred defendants’ family members, and (most striking) ordered certain cases removed from the public docket and the Criminal Court Clerk’s website so that interested media and members of the public could not tell when those cases would be heard.
The sealing itself broke the rules. When the competency motion and affidavits were filed, Blackburn sealed them without entering the written order Tennessee’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires, then recused herself. The judge who inherited the case, Angelita Blackshear Dalton, declined the Banner’s request to unseal the records (even though neither the State nor the defense opposed it) citing “more compelling interests.” That seal held for roughly two more years. Along the way, the Tennessee Attorney General’s office worked to keep the records closed, and the state’s highest court ultimately flagged a broader pattern of unchecked sealing at the Davidson County Criminal Court.
A word of fairness about Judge Dalton, because two things are true at once. She is, by the reporting, the colleague who recognized Blackburn’s stroke in 2021, called 911 and helped save her life. She is also the judge whose sealing rulings the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed. Both can be true, and the second does not erase the first. The criticism here is of the secrecy, not the humanity behind any one decision.
Why a Defense Lawyer Cares
Strip away the human drama and a hard legal problem remains: every one of these cases involved a defendant whose liberty was on the line in front of a judge whose fitness was in serious question and who had no way to know it, because the evidence was sealed. A defendant is entitled to a judge who is competent, impartial, and actually present. When that breaks down, it is not a matter of courtroom etiquette. It is due process.
The filings describe the stakes concretely. In one case, the defense moved to dismiss a count and had subpoenaed witnesses, but the judge declined to hold an evidentiary hearing and, the lawyers felt, signaled she had already made up her mind (“I think you know where I am going with that one”). In a homicide and aggravated-assault case, the filings describe a ruling the attorneys called “most likely legally improper” and serious enough to “significantly affect the outcome of a constitutional trial,” salvaged only when both sides later agreed to an order that mooted it. In another trial, a hearsay ruling was left so unclear that the State simply abandoned the evidence rather than guess at what the court had decided. These were not abstract cases. They included some of the most serious charges a person can face, where the cost of a judge who cannot follow the argument falls hardest on the accused.
The Tennessee Supreme Court Steps In
On May 21, 2026, the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously ordered the records unsealed. It was only the third media-access case it had taken up in a decade. Writing for the court, Justice Mary Wagner found “no compelling interest that would overcome the presumption of openness for judicial records,” and explained that the presumption of openness is rooted deep in the common-law tradition and exists precisely to strengthen public confidence in the courts.
The court did not stop at the Blackburn files. In a pointed instruction to clerks statewide, it said that technology or processes that automatically strip cases from public-facing dockets should be eliminated, and that even sealed matters should still appear on the public docket under properly anonymized titles. Notice what the remedy was. No commission disciplined anyone; Blackburn had already retired. The cure here came from transparency and from a courtroom being forced back open. That is the lesson the file is really about.
How It Works in Texas
Texas has structural guardrails aimed at exactly this situation. The first is age: Texas imposes a mandatory judicial retirement age (generally 75) under Article V, Section 1-a of its constitution. Tennessee evidently does not enforce one the same way; Blackburn was in her mid-70s, had won reelection in 2022, and remained on the bench. A bright-line retirement age is a blunt instrument, but it is a guardrail.
The second is a dedicated mechanism for fitness itself. Under Article V, Section 1-a(6) of the Texas Constitution, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct can pursue not only discipline for misconduct but the involuntary retirement of a judge whose disability is permanent and seriously interferes with the performance of judicial duties. That is a route built for the precise question Nashville buried (i.e. is this judge still able to do the job?) and it can be used without anyone having to call a respected jurist corrupt.
The third is openness. The Texas Constitution opens with the command that “all courts shall be open” (Article I, Section 13). On the civil side, Rule 76a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure treats court records as presumptively public and requires a motion, posted public notice, a hearing, and a written order with specific findings before anything can be sealed. A seal entered with no written order (the very thing that happened in Nashville) would not survive Rule 76a. The citations change at the state line; the principle does not.
Open Courts Protect the Accused Most
There is a grim irony in sealing a courtroom to protect a judge. Open courts do not exist for the comfort of the people on the bench. They exist for the people in front of it including the accused, whose liberty is at stake, and the public, whose confidence in the system depends on being able to watch it work. A secret court run to shield a judge’s decline turns that purpose inside out.
The defense lawyers who raised the alarm understood the assignment. They honored a distinguished career and still concluded that no career, however esteemed, can outweigh the rights of the accused. That is not disloyalty to the bench. It is the job. Transparency was never an attack on Cheryl Blackburn; it was a safeguard for everyone who ever stood before her.
Concerned a Conviction or Trial Wasn’t Fair?A defendant is entitled to a competent, impartial, and attentive judge, and to an open courtroom. When that breaks down, the appellate and post-conviction process exists to address it. Deandra Grant Law handles serious criminal-defense, appellate, and post-conviction matters across Texas, and federal cases through Of Counsel James Lee Bright, whose work spans all four Texas federal districts, the Fifth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. Call (214) 225-7117 • texasdwisite.com |
The Gavel of Shame • National Edition • Case File No. 16
By Deandra Grant • Deandra Grant Law • Published June 2026
Sources
News coverage
- Nashville Banner (Mikeie Honda Reiland, June 3, 2026) — the unsealed records. com
- Nashville Banner (Steve Cavendish, May 21, 2026) — the Tennessee Supreme Court ruling. com
Reference
- Tennessee Coalition for Open Government — sealed-records case background. info
This post discusses public court records the Tennessee Supreme Court ordered unsealed. The descriptions of Judge Blackburn’s health are allegations and firsthand observations from those records, not findings or a medical diagnosis. This is general commentary on a public record, not legal advice.
