Memphis Municipal Court judges have nominated retired Judge Earnestine Hunt Dorse to serve as interim City Court Clerk, months after the office's previous leader was fired amid citizen complaints and operational irregularities. Judges Varonica Cooper and Kenya Hooks recommended Dorse for the post, stepping into a vacancy left by the termination of clerk Sukita Johnson earlier this year.
Johnson, the dismissed City Court Clerk, was sworn into the role on January 2, 2024, after municipal judges appointed her under a newly restructured process, according to WREG. She was terminated on April 7, 2026, and later appeared before the Memphis City Council on April 14, when she requested an appeal of her firing. That appeal is now set for an administrative hearing on August 28, per the same report.
Memphis Municipal Administrative Judge Jayne Chandler said the irregularities that led to Johnson's ouster surfaced after citizen complaints, according to WREG. The dossier does not specify what those irregularities entailed, and the outcome of Johnson's pending appeal remains unresolved.
How the Clerk's Office Ended Up in Judges' Hands
The clerk's position wasn't always something Municipal Court judges controlled. In May 2023, the Memphis City Council voted to convert the City Court Clerk from an elected office into one appointed by the court's own judges, after city legal counsel discovered that a 1975 ordinance creating the elected role had never been properly ratified as a charter amendment, as reported by the Tennessee Bar Association Law Blog. That governance shift took effect once former clerk Myron Lowery's term expired in January 2024, clearing the way for judges to select Johnson as his successor.
The office they oversee is no small operation. It runs out of the 201 Poplar Ave courthouse and maintains five satellite locations at Memphis Police Department precinct stations in Appling Farms, Austin Peay, Crump, Raines, and Ridgeway, where citizens can process citations and court fees, according to the City of Memphis. In its Fiscal Year 2025 operating budget presentation, the clerk's office set a goal of collecting 100 percent of traffic summonses, ordinance citations, and fee monies owed to the city while modernizing data processing across departments.
A History of Oversight Trouble
Administrative controversy is not new to the clerk's office. Back in November 2015, then-Clerk Thomas Long was called before the City Council to explain a four-year delay in refunding nearly $300,000 in overcharged court costs to traffic ticket-holders, according to The Commercial Appeal. At the time, then-Judge Dorse publicly criticized the office over the delays, a detail that adds irony to her potential return as the person now tasked with running it.
Dorse's Long Record on the Memphis Bench
Dorse's nomination draws on decades of judicial experience. She became the first African American woman elected to the Memphis Municipal Court in 1990 and served on the bench for 29 years, including 16 years as Administrative Municipal Judge, before retiring in January 2019, according to the Tri-State Defender. She was succeeded on Division 1 by the late Judge Teresa Jones.
Her civil rights roots in Memphis run deep. As a tenth-grade student at Melrose High School in Orange Mound in 1968, Dorse organized a student walkout in support of striking Memphis sanitation workers, while her sister, Mary Louise Hunt, was present on the Lorraine Motel balcony during the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., according to 3BL Media.
After leaving the bench, Dorse remained active in high-profile civil rights work. She served as local co-counsel alongside national civil rights attorney Ben Crump in an April 2023 federal lawsuit filed against the City of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department on behalf of the family of Tyre Nichols, whose fatal beating by police followed a January 2023 traffic stop, according to Ben Crump Law. More recently, in July 2025, Dorse joined the national alternative dispute resolution firm Resolute Systems as a neutral mediator and arbitrator in Tennessee, a role that kept her professionally active heading into her interim nomination.
Who Oversees the Decision
The Memphis Municipal Court bench consists of three divisions: Division 1 Judge Kenya Hooks, Division 2 Judge Varonica Cooper, who serves as Administrative Judge, and Division 3 Judge Jayne R. Chandler, according to the City of Memphis FY25 Budget Book. Those three judges collectively oversee court operations and hold authority over clerk appointments under the 2023 governance restructuring. Cooper and Hooks are the two judges who put forward Dorse's name for the interim post, while Chandler has publicly addressed the complaints that led to Johnson's dismissal.
Johnson's administrative appeal hearing, scheduled for August 28, will determine what comes next in her dispute with the court. Whether Dorse's nomination becomes permanent, and what specific irregularities prompted Johnson's termination, remain open questions as Memphis's court system works through the transition.
