Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog: Criminal Law

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Criminal Law

Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog

Covers DUI, Narcotics and Drugs, White Collar Offenses and other Criminal Defense law issues with a focus on Tennessee State law.
By Baker Associates

Post Frequency: 5.4/day

Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 00:14:19

Voluntary Intoxication

Posted on July 16, 2010
Voluntary intoxication occupies a unique position with regard to criminal law in Tennessee because it does not provide an actual defense to the commission of any crime but it can serve to negate the specific intent required by a criminal statute and thereby enable the defendant to avoid conviction...

Woman Fakes Car-Jacking in Cover-Up

Posted on July 15, 2010
A New Jersey woman is being charged with filing a false report after police say that she made up a story about being the victim of a carjacking to cover up the fact that she crashed her car while having sex. The woman and her accomplice who was driving the car were apparently having an intimate moment of sorts when the car ran off the road and crashed into a tree...

Voluntary Manslaughter: Provocation

Posted on July 14, 2010
Believe it or not, being convicted of voluntary manslaughter is often good news for many defendants, because it essentially means that they were not convicted of the more serious charge of first-degree murder. Like the more serious homicide offenses, voluntary manslaughter requires that the defendant kill the victim intentionally...

Relevant Evidence

Posted on July 13, 2010
Evidence is what it is all about in criminal cases. What a criminal case basically boils down to is whether the state or federal government can introduce enough evidence in an effective manner to convince a jury that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of committing every element of the offense charged...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Hearsay

Posted on July 12, 2010
If you have ever watched one of the many legal dramas that pervade cable television, you have undoubtedly heard a lawyer vehemently declare the phrase ?Your honor, I object. That?s hearsay!? The concept seems simple enough: if you hear the witness say something along the lines of ?he said? or ?he told me? then you stand up, object to hearsay, have your objection sustained and then sit down triumphantly...

Character Evidence

Posted on July 09, 2010
Evidentiary rules are one of the more difficult aspects of law practice to master. In fact, case after case has proven that when defendants decide to go ahead with a case pro se (representing themselves), evidentiary issues present such defendants the most problems and seems to be where they make the most mistakes at trial...

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Posted on July 08, 2010
The beauty of the American criminal justice system is that it allows a defendant to be presumed innocent until he is proven guilty, and that proof must establish that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This also means that the burden is on the prosecution (almost always the state or federal government) to prove that the defendant is guilty rather than being placed on the defendant to prove that he is innocent...

Criminal Responsibility in Tennessee

Posted on July 07, 2010
Tennessee law recognizes that some crimes require the cooperation of more than one person in order to be completed successfully. For example, a successful bank robbery may need a couple of guys to actually go in and rob the bank and then another guy to drive the getaway car, etc...

New Law Tougher on Sex Offenders

Posted on July 06, 2010
A myriad of new laws took effect in Tennessee on July 1, 2010, many of which deal directly with criminal law and defendants' rights. One such law will strengthen Tennessee's already burdensome restrictions that are placed on persons found guilty of sexual offenses...

Lawn Care Dispute Turns Deadly

Posted on July 06, 2010
Let it be known that neighbors Darren Wilkerson and Bruce Willard of Bartow, Florida are serious about lawn care. So serious, in fact, that when Mr. Wilkerson took it upon himself to trim Mr. Willard?s hedges, the situation turned into a no-holds barred fiasco that threatened the life of both men involved...

Fireworks Laws in Tennessee

Posted on July 02, 2010
Almost everyone who has a Fourth of July celebration finds some way to incorporate the long-standing tradition of shooting and watching fireworks. Fortunately, most people do so in a safe and legal manner, but that is not always case. Because fireworks, though entertaining, have a capacity to be extremely dangerous many counties and cities in Tennessee regulate firework use or ban them altogether...

Observation Without Consent

Posted on July 01, 2010
Although persons known as ?peeping toms? seem to be found much more frequently in movies or television shows than in the real world, Tennesseans are occasionally apprehended for engaging in such activity, known formally as observation without consent, and end up facing up to eleven months and twenty-nine days in jail...

Misdemeanors

Posted on June 30, 2010
Misdemeanors are offenses that are punishable by less than a year of incarceration. Misdemeanors comprise the least serious of the criminal offenses and consequently are committed more frequently than felonies, which comprise more serious criminal conduct which a smaller number of people seem willing to engage in...

The Insanity Defense

Posted on June 29, 2010
The insanity defense is perhaps the most famous defense in all of criminal law. It is frequently used in capital murder cases and with good reason. Jurors are more willing to buy into an insanity defense if the crime for which the defendant was charged seems like a crime no sane or rational person could commit (for example, an especially heinous murder or the murder of a young child)...

Effective Consent

Posted on June 28, 2010
Effective consent is a term used by Tennessee law that allows a person who is charged with causing or threatening to cause bodily injury to another person to use as a defense the fact that the alleged victim effectively consented to the conduct. This defense is allowable under Tennessee law where the conduct in question did not actually cause or pose the risk of serious bodily injury or where the conduct and the harm involved were reasonably foreseeable hazards of any kind of planned or arranged activity not forbidden by law...

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream When the Ice Cream Man Threatens Us with a Steak Knife

Posted on June 25, 2010
There are certain vocations that are only suited for those who like to live dangerously; astronaut, matador, assassin, and Chicago Cubs fan to name a few. Well, now that ?the ice cream wars are heating up? in Washington state according to Marysville police Commander Robb Lamoureux, you can add ice cream vendor to that list...

Reversible Error

Posted on June 24, 2010
Criminal trials are often long and complicated and present many confusing issues for defendant, lawyer, and judge alike. It is unavoidable, then, that mistakes will be made at some point along the way with regard to how the trial is conducted, which evidence is admitted and how it is used, or at various other stages of the trial...

Dispute Over Last Beer Turns Physical

Posted on June 23, 2010
It is one of life?s unspoken rules that you don?t just take the ?last one? of something without asking. For example, you don?t take the last slice of pizza or the last dinner roll without asking around to see if anyone else wants it. Failure to do so may earn you some nasty glares and snide comments, or, if you are in the company of forty-one year-old Elizabeth Breeden from Land O? Lakes, Florida, a good old-fashioned beat down...

Violating the Terms of Probation

Posted on June 22, 2010
Probation is one of a few types of alternative sentencing that is used by the Tennessee Courts when sentencing defendants who have been found guilty of, or plead guilty to, a crime. Simply put, alternative sentences are used when the defendant is able to convince the court that he or she does not deserve to have to spend the entirety of the defendant?s sentence in confinement...

Search Warrants: Particularity

Posted on June 21, 2010
Being subjected to a police search is a harrowing experience. Even if the person who is subjected to the search is completely innocent, it is nerve-racking to have someone sifting through your possessions and looking for any evidence they can find that may lead to your arrest...

Animal Fighting in Tennessee

Posted on May 07, 2010
Animal fighting has made somewhat of a resurgence in the national headlines lately with the exploits of individuals such as Michael Vick, former quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons who now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, who served prison time due to his connection with a dog-fighting ring...

Woman Tries to Rob Bank with Note and then Eats it

Posted on May 06, 2010
In continuing the tradition that was started yesterday on our blog of discussing suspects eating the evidence, we bring you the story of a forty year-old Ohio woman who attempted to rob a local bank with a note but ended up eating the note instead. She apparently got to the front of the teller line and handed the teller the note...

The Dual Sovereignty Principle

Posted on May 05, 2010
The Constitution grants many different rights to criminal defendants with one of the most important being protection from ?double jeopardy,? which is being tried twice for the same offense. This protects defendants by preventing them from being found not guilty of an offense by a jury of their peers and then being put right back to trial for the same offense in front of a different jury...

Teacher Admits to Poisoning His Own Coffee

Posted on May 04, 2010
As a wise group of men collectively known as Nazareth once put it: love hurts. Well, love hurts even more if you poison your own coffee in an attempt to get attention from the girl who just broke up with you. In fact, it may just hurt so much that it puts you in the hospital...

Man Gets Life in Prison for Burning Homeless Man Alive

Posted on May 03, 2010
Ben Martin, a thirty-one year-old former barber from Los Angeles, really wanted to do his part to help the homeless get off of the city streets, for all the wrong reasons. Instead of volunteering his time at a homeless shelter or joining a program like Habitat for Humanity (which assists persons unable to afford or find housing with obtaining a place to call their own), Mr...

New Bill Looking to Slow Speeders Down

Posted on April 30, 2010
According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, a new bill is making its way through the Tennessee Senate that would allow motorists who are driving in excess of twenty-five miles per hour over the speed limit to be fined up to $500. To put this fine in perspective, it is more than the minimum fine imposed for a first offense DUI and is the same maximum fine as that allotted for a Class B misdemeanor which carries a penalty of up to six months in jail...

Serial Killer Gets New Judge in Murder Trial

Posted on April 29, 2010
A suspected serial killer accused of murdering eleven women has received a new judge to try his murder case after the Ohio Supreme Court has removed his current judge under suspicion of inappropriate conduct. The man?s attorney filed a motion to have the judge removed in order to avoid the ?appearance of impropriety,? alleging that the judge discussed the case with another judge outside of the presence of the defendant or his attorneys, that the judge made inappropriate comments about the defendant on a website, and that the judge had a financial stake in the outcome of the case...

Domestic Abuse: Primary Aggresor (Part II)

Posted on April 28, 2010
In our previous blog, we discussed how police officers in Tennessee are commanded by law to assess a domestic violence situation by determining who the primary aggressor is and responding to that situation accordingly. It is worth noting that the decision as to who is the primary aggressor is not entirely up to the discretion of the police officer...

Domestic Abuse: Primary Aggressor

Posted on April 27, 2010
The old adage ?familiarity breeds contempt? unfortunately rings even truer when one looks at the criminal landscape in Tennessee. Unfortunately, domestic violence situations comprise a great deal of the criminal activity in this state. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one overwhelming factor is that people who live together generally face life?s biggest ups and downs together...

Man Arrested After Grotesque Use of Parking Ticket

Posted on April 26, 2010
At one time or another, almost everyone has received a parking ticket or citation that they felt was given out unfairly. In fact, many reality TV shows focus solely or in large part on what happens when drivers are pulled over or cited for some driving violation and react inappropriately...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Personal Injury: 5 Reasons Why Your NY Injury Lawyer Will Lose His License
1. He steals your money.2. He steals your money.3. He steals your ...

Immigration Lawyer And Assistant Found Guilty Of Visa Fraud
The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of T...

Injustice - Righting a Wrong - NY Medical Malpractice Lawyer Explains
Have you ever felt that you were wronged? Maybe you noticed it whe...

Dead Man's Family Calls NY Malpractice Lawyer First Before Burying Him
THIS IS A TRUE STORYA call came in the other day. A hysterical wom...

2 Questions Every New York Malpractice Lawyer Needs To Ask
A potential client calls the office with a story that rambles on a...