The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides many protections for defendants including the right not to “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” In the case of Miranda v. Arizona case, the United States Supreme Court added a further protection to this Fifth Amendment right. It ruled that any incriminating statements a suspect makes against his interests will not be admissible in court unless the suspect: Was told of his/her [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court gave privacy rights advocates a significant victory on June 22, 2018. According to the 5-to-4 decision, in which Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Court’s four liberal Justices, the police are now required to obtain a warrant in order to obtain cell phone location information as part of an investigation. The majority asserts Fourth Amendment protection reasons The five Justices voting in the majority argued that a distinct expectation of privacy in [...]

Probation and parole sound like they should be alike, but they are really two different criminal law ideas. Both place a high value on good behavior. Both terms address what is to be done with a defendant who has been convicted of a crime. They even start with the same letter. The two terms, though, are used at different phases of the criminal law proceedings. There are different legal issues in both probation and parole proceedings [...]

A lot of people have to take prescription drugs to help them combat their illnesses. These medications and other controlled substances are heavily regulated, and misusing, abusing, and/or counterfeiting prescription drugs and other drugs is against the law in the state of Tennessee (and the other 49 states). We think it’s important that you know the penalties and fines related to criminal drug charges for prescription drugs. It’s not that we think you’re dealing your own [...]

The media has been awash in stories of sexual misconduct perpetrated by men in positions of authority on vulnerable people in the entertainment industry, government, sports and other industries. After a few brave women stepped forward and reported the bad behavior of the men who had taken advantage of them, the proverbial floodgates seem to have opened and many women came forward to tell their stories. Women and men who had been sexually assaulted by men [...]

In every day use, the word “homicide” gets swapped with the word “murder” pretty often. In Tennessee, though, those words have different meanings – and different penalties when someone is convicted of the crimes. Criminal homicide is the “unlawful killing of another person,” whether it was intentional or not. In other words, all murder is criminal homicide, but not all criminal homicide is murder. What charges fall under criminal homicide in Tennessee? What are the penalties [...]

In the United States, there are a lot of laws regarding the purchase, sale and consumption of alcohol, and those laws can vary from state to state. Both federal and state law require, however, that a person must be 21 years old or older before he or she can drink alcoholic beverages. There’s another law governing underage drinking in Tennessee. We call it a “dram shop” law, or social host liability. The exact wording or nature [...]