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By Buzz Trexler

Star Correspondent

Teresa Murray Smith, who briefly served as Elizabethton Municipal judge in 2020, was elected to fill the vacant city judge seat by the City Council during Thursday night’s regular meeting.

“I am humbled and honored by the City Council’s action in appointing me,” Smith said in an email to the Star. “I will make every effort to live up to their confidence in me. I hope the city court can now get on with its purpose without any distractions.”

Smith was appointed to the seat by a 6-1 vote, with Councilman Kim Birchfield casting the lone vote after nominating Jason Lee Holly, who previously filled the seat.

The judicial post was vacant under the city charter after Holly, who was reelected as municipal court judge in November, was unable to hold court due to a temporary suspension of his law license by the Tennessee Supreme Court Board of Professional Responsibility on Oct. 28.

The charter declares a vacancy exists if the city judge has been “continuously disabled for a period of three months.” During its Feb. 13 regular meeting, City Council members moved unanimously to fill the vacancy “in an orderly and deliberate way” and began accepting applications with a noon Feb. 28 deadline.

The board filed an order lifting the suspension on Feb. 18, but by then the City Council had acted on the vacancy.

The City Council gave a noon Feb. 28 deadline for applications to fill the vacant judicial seat. Council members on March 10 interviewed Smith, Dwayne Fortner, and Richard Norris, who withdrew due to being ineligible because he is not a resident of Elizabethton.

Smith will serve until the next regular city or county election, at which time voters will elect someone to fill Holly’s unexpired term.

The City Council elected Holly as interim city judge in February 2020, succeeding T.J. Little Jr., who died Dec. 28, 2019, leaving the city without a judge. Little had been in the post since 2007. The following August, Holly failed in a bid to fill Little’s unexpired term, losing to Smith. However, Holly defeated Smith in the November 2020 election.

Smith is a 1971 graduate of Elizabethton High School and a 1977 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law. She passed the Tennessee Bar examination in 1978 and practiced in Elizabethton for a few months before accepting a position with the District Attorney General’s Office in Carter County and then Sullivan County before retiring in 2008. She later came out of retirement to practice law in Blountville before retiring again.

On Dec. 12, the Elizabethton City Council unanimously approved 1st Judicial District Criminal Court Judge Stacy L. Street as acting Elizabethton municipal court judge.

Street administered the oath of office following Smith’s appointment.