October 2014

One of the former Vanderbilt Football players accused of rape appears to be ready to put on a defense of  intoxication as a defense. The defense for Brandon Vadenburg has filed a report of an expert where they assert that alcohol  effected his mental state.

Tennessee Code Annotated 39-11-503 spells out the defense of intoxication

Early voting has started in Tennessee . One of the measures on the ballot is a change to Tennessee’s constitution. Currently , Tennessee’s constitution requires that all Supreme Court Justices shall be elected. When the amendment on judges was written in  1870 , big money from out of state was not around to influence elections . In

Jan Hoffman of The New York Times reported on the issue of juveniles not understanding their rights when questioned by the police. The  studies show that  a juvenile is not developmentally ready to make decisions that will impact their life forever. One common misconception is that the parents must be present when their child is questioned

Last Sunday , I was enjoying my early morning routine of French press coffee , reading the Tennessean , New York Times , and Twitter. I came across a tweet from attorney Lee Rosen about a blog post from lawyer Liz  Davies . The topic of the post was " How to tell your parents

Olympic swimming  star Michael Phelps checked into a alcohol treatment facility after his second DUI arrest. I mention his problem because some folks in Tennessee think about doing the same thing if they are arrested for a DUI. Tennessee recently enacted some new laws about  certain benefits of getting into a alcohol treatment .

Tennessee enacted