The TPI-Criminal Committee of the Tennessee Judicial Conference provides the following information as a service to Tennessee judges and lawyers. Please be aware that this is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal advice.
Updates to current
instructions
Lesser included offenses
Last updated February 28, 2008
This document is in Adobe Acrobat Format. If you need the free reader it is
available at the Adobe Acrobat web site here.
The TPI-Criminal Committee has received many requests from trial judges for assistance in jury charges which involve lesser included offenses, a rapidly evolving area of criminal law.
Judge Joseph M. Tipton of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has
compiled a listing of decisions of the Tennessee Supreme Court and Tennessee
Court of Criminal Appeals, applying State
v. Burns, 6 S.W.3d 454 (Tenn. 1999) to lesser included offenses. Judge
Tipton has authorized the Committee to post his outline for informational
purposes.
It should be noted that in these opinions the court
determined only whether particular crimes were lesser included offenses but did
not necessarily list all lesser included offenses for each indicted
offense.
The TPI-Criminal Committee expresses it's
appreciation to Judge Tipton for providing this user's guide. The guide will be
periodically updated.