Photo and logo courtesy of Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference
CHESTER, HENDERSON and MADISON COUNTIES, Tenn. – Jody Pickens, 26th District Attorney General, has been elected by the District Attorneys General throughout the state to serve as president of the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference. In that role, he will also serve as chairman of the organization’s Executive Committee. With these new responsibilities Pickens will play a crucial role in guiding the overall administration of justice in Tennessee.
“I am extremely humbled by the confidence all 31 elected District Attorneys General from across the state have placed in me, and I look forward to helping guide this great organization. For almost 27 years, I have been fortunate to be entrusted with the responsibility and opportunity to make the 26th Judicial District a safer place for everyone to go about the quiet enjoyment of their lives. With this election, I will now have the opportunity to do the same for all of Tennessee.”
“The president of the Executive Committee helps guide every decision we make in our work to improve public safety and provide for a more prompt and efficient administration of justice throughout this great state,” explained Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference Executive Director Guy Jones. “I have no doubt General Pickens will uphold this responsibility admirably and continue serving his fellow District Attorneys General with distinction.”
After graduating from law school in 1996, Pickens was appointed Assistant District Attorney General by General Jerry Woodall, a position he held for 21 years. After Woodall’s retirement, Pickens was appointed District Attorney General by Gov. Bill Haslam in 2017 and was then elected in 2018. Pickens is a lifelong resident of Madison County, Tennessee, and is actively involved in the community. Since 2004, Pickens has served as a member of the Sexual Assault Response Team for Jackson-Madison County. He is a Paul Harris Fellow of the Jackson Downtown Rotary Club, an elder at First Presbyterian Church, and a board member for the STAR Center as well as the Jackson-Madison County Sport Hall of Fame. In addition to community involvement, he has served on the Executive Committee of the TNDAGC for the past four years and is a member of the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility, which is appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court, and a former member of Gov. Bill Lee’s Council for Judicial Appointments, which submitted names for consideration of appointment to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Tennessee Supreme Court. He is a past president of the Jackson-Madison County Bar Association and is on the Executive Committee for the Howell Edmunds Jackson Inn of Court.
For 12 years he has been married to the former Linsey Stone and has three children, Stone (11), Sarah Tucker (9), and Elizabeth (7).
The Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference was created by the General Assembly in 1961 to provide for a more prompt and efficient administration of justice in the courts of the state. It is composed of the elected District Attorneys General from the state’s 32 judicial districts. www.tndagc.org