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 [...]

Whether you chose to watch Monday night’s debate, or simply looked on the internet for anything the next day, you know that the controversial practice of “stop and frisk” made its way back into the public’s eyes this week. In particular, the candidates debated whether or not the practice was legal in their own home state of New York (it’s not; a judge ruled it unconstitutional in New York), and whether or not it’s effective or [...]

When you are facing serious charges, you need serious defense. Jeffrey Sweeney, former co-owner of the Casual Pint, was facing a misdemeanor charge of patronizing prostitution – until he hired T. Scott Jones, that is. You can check out the Knoxville News Sentinel’s coverage of how T. Scott Jones successfully represented Sweeney and had that charge dropped by clicking  this link.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say that you have a legitimate argument for not paying the ticket,” says T. Scott Jones, partner at Banks & Jones in Knoxville. Check out the rest of T. Scott’s interview on Local 8 Now by clicking this link.

But the most important question might be, “Where’s the evidence?” If you live in Knoxville (or indeed, anywhere in this country), you’ve heard about the Zaevion Dobson case. President Obama himself pointed out the heroics of the young man, who was killed during his attempts to shield three young women from gunfire. Today’s preliminary hearing shows us once again that there is no concrete evidence that links the accused to the death of Zaevion Dobson. The [...]

An article published online in The Atlantic earlier this year discussed Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s statement that “243 people were arrested and charged with stealing $712 million from Medicare,” which she claimed was “the largest criminal healthcare fraud takedown in the history of the Department of Justice.” The article went on to cite statistics from NPR and ProPublica, as well as other sources, of Medicare fraud being performed by doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals over [...]