Reviewing court faulted in surprise ruling, judge holds

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted November 10, 2022 11:19 AM

Reviewing courts sometimes deliver surprise decisions based on issues that were not briefed by the litigants — although this practice has been denounced as undermining respect for the judiciary, violating the principle of party representation and crossing into a partisan system where judges roam around looking for “wrongs” to correct.The Tennessee Supreme Court detailed the objections to this practice when it reversed a Court of Criminal Appeals decision that threw out a conviction based on an “unpreserved and unpresented …

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