The Hon. Sandra N.C. Donaghy is a judge for the 10th Judicial District Criminal Court of Tennessee. She was elected to the bench in 2014.
The 10th Judicial District includes McMinn, Bradley, Monroe, and Polk Counties.
Prior to her judicial tenure, Donaghy worked for several years as an assistant district attorney general in both the 10th Judicial District (1992 to 2006) and the 7th Judicial District (2006 to 2014). She also spent four years as a magistrate for the Bradley County Juvenile Drug Court (2006 to 2010).
Over the course of her legal career, Donaghy was also an attorney in private practice in Wisconsin (1984 to 1992), an assistant public defender in Kane County, Illinois (1996 to 1997), and a court commissioner in Racine, Wisconsin (1986 to 1988).
She received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1976. Donaghy then completed a J.D. at the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1984.
She received the President’s Award from the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference in 2005 and 2013.
From the age of ten, Donaghy worked in her family’s restaurant in Racine, Wisconsin. The Sunshine Restaurant was started by her grandfather in 1932, and her parents later assumed ownership in 1956. Over the years, Donaghy served as a dishwasher, cook, waitress, and bookkeeper. She eventually shuttered the establishment in 1996, following the passing of her mother.
Donaghy attends First United Methodist Church in Cleveland.
She is registered as a Republican.