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 [...]