The case involved a police officer who responded to two urgent anonymous reports of a man with a shotgun threatening to shoot someone in a trailer park. The officer located the defendant in a nearby yellow Ford, activated his blue lights to stop the moving vehicle, observed a shotgun inside, and arrested him on multiple charges including possession of a weapon with intent to go armed. The trial court suppressed the evidence, finding no reasonable suspicion for the stop, and the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed, holding that the stop was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution because the tips, combined with the threat of imminent violence and partial corroboration, provided specific and articulable facts justifying a brief investigatory seizure under Terry v. Ohio standards. The case was remanded for further proceedings.

criminal lawgunsprocedure

In Blankenship v. State, the petitioner filed a post-conviction challenge to the validity of six prior guilty pleas used to establish his habitual criminal status and life sentence, claiming the pleas were not voluntary and intelligent under Boykin v. Alabama because he had not been advised of his right against self-incrimination or that the convictions could enhance future sentences. The Tennessee Supreme Court granted review to address the application of Boykin standards in a collateral attack far removed from the original convictions, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Parke v. Raley. The court held that on collateral review, final convictions carry a presumption of regularity, and the unavailability of transcripts does not require the state to prove validity through extra-record evidence or create a silent-record violation under Boykin. It distinguished this collateral context from direct appeals and noted that certain state-law advisements on enhancement were not required by federal constitutional standards at the time of the pleas.

criminal lawprocedure

In Hawk v. Hawk, married parents denied visitation to the paternal grandparents amid family conflicts over child-rearing, discipline, and associations. The grandparents sought court-ordered visitation under T.C.A. § 36-6-301, which allows reasonable grandparent visitation if in the child's best interests. The trial court and Court of Appeals granted extensive visitation despite finding the parents fit, but the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed. The court held that applying the statute to these facts violated the parents' constitutional right to privacy in parenting decisions under Article I, Section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution, because fit parents have a fundamental liberty interest in controlling their children's upbringing and associations, and the state interest in best interests alone is not sufficiently compelling to override it without a showing of harm.

family lawcivil rights

The case involved Danny Branam's convictions for conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery, and first-degree felony murder, along with his death sentence for the murder, stemming from a 1987 shooting during a robbery in Knoxville. The Tennessee Supreme Court reduced Branam's death sentence to life imprisonment, concluding that as a non-triggerman accomplice he lacked the reckless indifference to human life required under the Eighth Amendment and state law for capital punishment in felony-murder cases, and that the sentence was disproportionate compared to similar cases. The court remanded for a hearing on a potential Brady violation regarding withheld evidence but found the defendant's confession obtained via a jail informant admissible and upheld the convictions against other challenges, including issues with counsel withdrawal and jury voir dire. The opinion addressed the adequacy of the record on severance and attorney conflicts but found no reversible error warranting a new trial absent the Brady issue.

criminal lawprocedurefederal power