The Tennessee Supreme Court is the highest appellate court of the State of Tennessee. Unlike those of other states, the Tennessee Supreme Court is responsible for the appointment of the state attorney general.

The current constitution of the State of Tennessee, adopted in 1870 calls for five justices, of which at least one but not more than two must be from each of the state's three "Grand Divisions" (East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee) in order to prevent regional bias. Additionally, the court is required to meet in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson, also to prevent regional bias. In recent years this provision has been regarded as permissive rather than restrictive, and court has also met in other cities throughout the state as part of a legal education project for high school students. The justices serve eight-year terms and can succeed themselves; the office of Chief Justice rotates among them. Justices are required to recuse themselves in cases in which they may have a personal interest; the whole court once had to step aside and a case be heard by a special court appointed by the Governor, this occurring when the court itself became the subject of litigation, described below.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has no original jurisdiction. Other than in cases of worker's compensation, which have traditionally been appealed directly to it from the trial court, it only hears appeals of civil cases which have been heard by the Court of Appeals, and of criminal cases that have been heard by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Before the 1970s, the justices were elected by a statewide ballot on a partisan basis (an arrangement that had yielded only Democrats). Since the 1970s, the justices have been selected by the "Modifed Missouri Plan" in which they are subjected only to a "Yes/No" retention vote rather than partisan opponents. (This method is now applied to all appellate-level judges in Tennessee.) Litigation filed by Nashville political gadfly and perennial candidate John Jay Hooker, disputing that this process was an "election" in the sense envisioned by the framers of the state consitiution, was appealed all the way to the Tennessee Supreme Court, at which time the whole court was forced to recuse itself. The special Supreme Court appointed by the governor to hear this one case found that their current method of selection was in fact consititutional, much to the chagrin of Hoooker and his supporters.

As of 2004, only one member of the Tennessee Supreme Court has ever been removed under the Modified Missouri Plan. Former Justice Penny White was removed in 1996 in a campaign reminiscient of that used a few years prior in California against former Chief Justice Rose Bird, and for largely the same reason: White's apparent categorical opposition to the death penalty in any and all circumstances.