As I continue to determine what direction this blog should take., I am going to add a new category. The Tennessee Criminal Law Dictionary.

What is a Plea Bargain ?

A plea bargain is the process where the District Attorney and the lawyer for the accused tries to work out an agreement to settle the criminal charge.It

I ran across some great information from www.immigrationdefenselproject.org on the Padillia case. Here’ is the main points

Some Key Padilla Take-Away Points for Criminal Defense Lawyers

• Deportation is a “penalty,” not a “collateral consequence,” of the criminal proceeding. The Court held that deportation is a “particularly severe ‘penalty’” and made clear that the “direct

 Criminal defense lawyers in Tennessee and across the country are struggling with the fallout from the recent case from the U.S. Supreme Court.In Padilla v. Kentucky , a copy of the opinion is attached to the link, the court held the conviction was invalid based upon the criminal defense attorney’s representation of the effects of

The United States Supreme Court ruled that criminal defense lawyers have a Sixth Amendment obligation to warn their clients when their guilty pleas can result in deportation.Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion that held that the criminal lawyer representing Jose Padilla should have advised him that a guilty plea to transporting marijuana would make him