Blount County District Attorney General Ryan Desmond will appoint longstanding member of the district attorney’s office Tracy Jenkins as deputy attorney general effective August 1. Jenkins will have all of Desmond’s authority and will operate under his supervision to prosecute cases and help administrate the office of the attorney general.
Desmond, who was elected in 2022, said this is the second time Blount County has seen a deputy district attorney. He decided to appoint Jenkins because of her skill and experience.
Jenkins is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and initially planned to go into tax law before getting an invite to work with the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. There, she served as the sole prosecutor for Union County until moving to Blount County in 2014, where she is currently the dedicated prosecutor for the Maryville Police Department.
“She is a very, very seasoned prosecutor,” Desmond said. “She and I have been trial partners for many years, prosecuting a lot of murder cases and homicides together. She’s a fantastic litigator, a brilliant lawyer, and, candidly, the jurisdiction is just very lucky to have her.”
Having a deputy, he said, will free him up to better perform his duties. He wanted to choose someone he could trust, and that led him to Jenkins. The two worked their first trial together in 2015, when James Howard Harmon Jr. had been charged with murdering a Louisville woman and kidnapping her 18-month-old grandchild. The case had previously been declared a mistrial.
“Tracy and I went into it knowing if we made any mistakes whatsoever, this guy was going to end up walking because the court wasn’t going to put up with any more prosecutorial error,” Desmond said. “We got a good outcome, and that’s where our trial partner days kicked off.”
Harmon was convicted and is currently incarcerated at the Northeast Correctional Complex in Mountain City, according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
Jenkins, for her part, said she wants to be able to serve the community through her new role. She feels a passion for pursuing justice and wants to bring that justice to the victims and families she fights for in court.
“If I’m doing my job well, justice is being served for the people of Blount County, and this is a community I live in,” she said. “My daughter is here, and I want her to grow up in a safe community. I want her friends to grow up in a safe community.”
Her responsibility as deputy district attorney, she said, is to always try to do the right thing.