GENERAL SESSIONS All State prosecuted criminal cases, with the exception of two situations, i.e., a presentment and/or a sealed indictment, begin at a General Sessions Court level.

General Sessions Court is a court of limited jurisdiction having judicial authority over misdemeanor crimes. Therefore, for your convenience, it will be necessary to divide this discussion into those individuals charged with misdemeanor crimes and those individuals charged with felony crimes.

Misdemeanor Charges For those individuals who are charged with misdemeanor crimes, this means that they have been charged with a crime that falls within a category of an A misdemeanor, B misdemeanor, and/or C misdemeanor or a combination thereof.

In these cases, the General Sessions Court has the authority to reach a disposition if the defendant so chooses.

Please keep in mind, as I stated above, that any individual who is charged with a crime which punishment includes the possibility of incarceration, is entitled to a trial by jury in Criminal Court.

However, for the purposes of this illustration, we will discuss how a case can be resolved in General Sessions Court prior to reaching Criminal Court. In the preceding discussion concerning individuals charged with felonies, it will show how a felony, as well as a misdemeanor, can precede into Criminal Court.

Once an individual has been arraigned and placed on the docket in General Sessions Court, there are three possible scenarios that may occur.

First, the State may elect to dismiss the charges brought against an individual. Secondly, the State Prosecutor and the Defendant may reach an agreed upon disposition whereby some type of plea agreement is entered into. Third, the Defendant may elect to have a preliminary hearing (see discussion of Preliminary hearing in felony outline).

Felony Charges As stated in the prior discussion, General Sessions Court is a court of limited jurisdiction and holds jurisdiction over misdemeanor crimes only. Therefore, when an individual is charged with a felony crime, the General Sessions is limited in its power in handling these matters. Again, there are three possible scenarios that may occur when an individual is charged with a felony and is at the General Sessions Court level.

First, the State Prosecutor may elect to dismiss the charges. Secondly, the State can reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor charge and afford the General Sessions Court the power to reach disposition in that matter. Third, a preliminary hearing can occur.

A preliminary hearing is what is known as a probable cause hearing. At this hearing, the State has the burden of proof of putting on an offering to the Court enough testimony and/or evidence to show that there is probable cause that the defendant charged has committed such crime.

At this hearing, the burden of proof, which must be met by the State, is much lower than the burden of proof to prove an individual guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof at the preliminary hearing is only that more likely than not the individual charged has committed the crime in question.

The most beneficial thing about a preliminary hearing is that once the State puts a witness on the stand to make probable cause, that witness then becomes subject to cross examination by the defense attorney. This is a great opportunity for defense attorneys to gather information at the early stages of a case.

In most instances, it is not appropriate for the defendant to take the stand at the preliminary hearing stage simply for the fact that he or she becomes subject to cross examination by the State’s prosecutors. Therefore, these hearings are usually very short in nature due to the fact that the State does not want to put on any more proof than they have to meet probable cause.

Once, a Judge has heard the evidence offered by the State, if he or she finds probable cause that a crime has been committed, they will then bind this matter over to the Grand Jury.

Grand Jury A Grand Jury is thirteen (13) people from the community who meet in secret and hear cases presented to them by the State.

Again, this hearing is a probable cause hearing and the burden of proof is only held to the standard that a crime has more likely than not been committed as opposed to being found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

At these Grand Jury proceedings, the defendant nor his or her attorney are allowed to be present and only the State Prosecutor and their witnesses are present. Therefore, as you can well see, it is very easy for the State to make probable cause at this hearing.

If and when probable cause is reached by the State, the Grand Jury will return what is called a true bill and an indictment will be issued against the Defendant.

Once an indictment is returned against an individual for a crime, the process basically begins all over again.

CRIMINAL COURT Once an indictment is returned against an individual that individual will be notified and an arraignment date will be set.

At the arraignment date, the Court will make sure the defendant has an attorney and understands the charges against him or her. Once this is established, the Court will set a trial date and the criminal prosecution will begin.

At the Criminal Court, the burden of proof which must be met by the State to convict an individual of a crime, takes an enormous turn and requires that for an individual to be found guilty of a crime, a jury of twelve individuals must find that defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

This part of the criminal proceedings are generally what most individuals have seen all their lives on T.V., movies, etc.

A defendant who has reached this stage of the Judicial System will be provided an opportunity to call witnesses on their own behalf, have witnesses which are called on behalf of the State cross examined by the defendant’s attorney and if he or she so chooses, they may take the stand on their own behalf.

Again, as I stated earlier, once this process is completed, a jury will make a determination of guilt or innocence based on whether the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he or she has committed the crime as charged.

If the defendant is found guilty of the crime or crimes charged, then the next stage of the proceedings, will be a sentencing hearing.

This hearing will be conducted on a date after the issue of guilt has been decided by the Jury and will be conducted by the Judge alone.

It is the sole discretion of the presiding Judge as to the issue of what sentence a convicted defendant will receive as a result of his crime.

Todd Daniel is a criminal defense attorney with the Daniel & English Law Firm located in Knoxville Tennessee.

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