Nashville Criminal Attorney Blog

Small drug cases in Tennessee often start with a pipe in a car console, a pill box in a purse or a joint passed around at a party. What people believe about those moments is often wrong, and it can be wrong in either direction. Some of these myths make people too relaxed. Others make…

Not necessarily. Many Tennessee misdemeanor convictions can be expunged, but only by petition, only if you meet strict conditions, and only after a waiting period that is different from the one for a dismissed charge. For some convictions, though, the answer really is yes. Unless your case went through diversion and you completed it successfully,…

A breath or blood test can feel like the whole case — a number that seems to decide everything before you have even called a lawyer. It is not, and much of what people believe about these tests in Tennessee is wrong. Here are seven common myths, and what the law actually says. Myth 1:…

A Tennessee misdemeanor case travels a road most people have never been told about, and little of it looks the way television says it does. 1. The Charging Paper and the Date on It A misdemeanor case begins with a document — a warrant, a citation, a charging paper — and that document names a…

Usually yes, at first — because in Tennessee the arrest itself does not take your license. Tennessee is not one of the states where the motor vehicle agency cuts your license off a set number of days after an arrest. Here, it takes a judge. Then why do people lose their license long before the…

A DUI arrest after a crash is a very different case from an ordinary traffic stop. Someone may have been hurt, the car may have ended up on private land, blood may have been drawn at a hospital, or a child may have been riding with you. Each of those facts leads to beliefs that…

No. In Tennessee, a DUI cannot be diverted, and that includes a first offense. Isn't diversion what first-time offenders get? Diversion is an arrangement where your case is set aside while you meet certain conditions, and the charge is dismissed at the end. Tennessee has two versions of it, one run by the prosecutor and…

A DUI arrest in Tennessee happens fast, and the beliefs people fall back on in the car and at the jail — from a friend, a co-worker, or an article that was true somewhere else — are often wrong in ways that quietly make a case worse. Here are five of the most common. Myth…

If you are reading this at three in the morning because somebody was arrested tonight, you are allowed to not know what happens next. Almost nobody does. The hours between the handcuffs and the front door are the part of a Tennessee case nobody writes about, and the part families spend the night guessing at.…

Because the number is only one of two separate ways to be guilty of DUI in Tennessee, and the State can lose the one and still have the other. If the number doesn't decide it, what does? Impairment. The State can prove either that your alcohol level was at or above the legal limit, or…