When fights break out, many people think that the legal system will automatically protect them if they claim they acted in self-defense. After all, it is a legal principle that allows individuals to use reasonable force to defend themselves against imminent threats or acts of violence. However, not only is self-defense pretty difficult to prove, it does not always apply to your situation. At its core, self-defense recognizes that individuals have the right to preserve their [...]

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a vaccine that can combat fentanyl, the synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin that’s contributed to our nation’s ongoing opioid epidemic. The vaccine, successful in rats, stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to fentanyl, preventing the drug from crossing the blood-brain barrier and causing its potent effects. While the vaccine is still in the early stages of development and has not [...]

On April 4, President Donald Trump was arraigned in a New York City courtroom on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. But what are indictments and arraignments? How do they work? Does everyone go through them? We (along with PBS) thought this interesting period in history might make a good opportunity to take on these topics. What’s an indictment? A criminal indictment is a formal accusation of a crime, brought against an individual by a [...]

The consequences for a DUI conviction in Tennessee can be quite severe. You may be imprisoned and fined. Your insurance rates will skyrocket. Your license will probably be suspended. At Banks and Jones, our skilled criminal defense lawyers assert every defense possible, including challenging the grounds for being stopped and the validity of any chemical tests such as breathalyzer tests. One possible defense is that you were not intoxicated. The signs of intoxication that an officer [...]

Defendants who are arrested in Knoxville for any crime have a right to a bail hearing. The purpose of the bail hearing is for a judge to determine if the defendant should be released from prison and the terms of the release. Defendants who cannot meet the bail release terms remain in prison until the time of their hearing. Generally, in addition to being free pending a trial, defendants want to be released because it is [...]

Being arrested can be humiliating and harm your reputation. It doesn’t even matter if you’re innocent or guilty of the crime of which you’re accused – if friends, family, neighbors, or co-workers find out about your arrest, the damage is already done. Even if authorities got the wrong person, it can take a lot of time and a lot of headaches to get your name, community standing, and job back. If this unfortunate and frustrating [...]

Prison is intended to be rehabilitative as well as punitive – especially for non-violent and first-time offenders. A prison sentence that is too long may only serve one of these goals. The United States has an overincarceration problem. We put a lot of people in prison – according to the World Prison Brief, the U.S. ranks among the top countries for total prison population, second only to China – and we keep them there too long. [...]

In today’s day and age, law enforcement have a wide variety of advanced technology to assist them in determining whether a person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol while driving. One might assume that with such tools at their fingertips, any guesswork would be out of the running in deciding the guilt of the accused. However, despite these advancements, law enforcement still uses the unscientific approach of drug recognition experts, or DREs. These [...]

As of 2019, Tennessee prisons housed over 25,000 prisoners spread across 11 different facilities. The offenders vary in degree, but almost all of them work different jobs within those facilities at some point during their sentences. While helping convicts prepare for working after their release is undoubtedly a positive, poor conditions and an overall lack of choice lends to a far less savory idea — specifically, the idea that offender labor is nothing more than a [...]

As the pandemic slowly winds down, people are starting to travel again. We’re seeing an increase in the number of tourists here at home, and it’s safe to assume that other states are experiencing an influx of visitors as well. Some of them – like Illinois and Virginia, perhaps – may see some of our residents popping over the border for a very specific purpose: to get their hands on some legal marijuana. “Weed tourism” as [...]

When you’re charged with any sort of crime, the prosecution and court as a whole work as hard as possible to prove your alleged guilt — even if none exists. Ideally, everyone is innocent until they are proven guilty, but guilty treatment often starts much sooner than conviction. This prejudice and unjust behavior against defendants can easily lead to a violation of their rights. The prosecution may spin stories, put too much faith in the [...]