Rule 1 Scope and Definitions

Advisory Commission Comment.

These rules apply in cases which are clearly criminal in nature, including both misdemeanors and felonies. Procedures in purely juvenile and municipal courts are not covered. The term general sessions court, as used in these rules, includes all courts exercising the jurisdiction of a general sessions court in state criminal procedures, including: (1) municipal courts having such jurisdiction by special legislative enactment; (2) special courts of multiple functions that include some jurisdiction in state criminal cases the same as that exercised by general sessions courts; and (3) justices of the peace, to the extent that they may be permitted in some counties to perform any of the functions covered by these rules. In summary, the purpose of the commission was to formulate rules of practice in those state criminal cases presently considered to be state criminal procedures and now covered by rules serving the purposes of the ones promulgated herein.

These rules are not completely comprehensive. For example, they do not deal directly with pretrial release. It is intended that these rules be applied in every instance in which they address the procedure involved. If they do not expressly or by clear implication relate to the procedure in question, then existing law is to be applied.

These rules take precedence over preexisting statutes and case law which are in conflict with them, but statutes passed subsequent to their adoption which conflict with these rules shall control. These committee comments were not as such adopted with the rules. They have been periodically revised by the advisory commission and published with the rules subsequent to the general assembly's adoption of the resolution approving them. The purpose of these comments is to aid in the understanding and application of the rules; but it must be made clear that the committee comments are not a part of the rules and are not binding upon the courts.

Advisory Commission Comment [2006].

In 2006, the rules were updated and reformatted to make them more easily understood. The new format was based largely on a similar undertaking to update and reformat the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The advisory commission comments also were extensively revised to update citations to particular parts of these rules, to remove obsolete language, and to make the comments more comprehensible. In revising the comments, the commission consolidated the original comments with the subsequent comments added over the years, as the rules were amended. Following the 2006 revisions, new advisory commission comments will be added as individual rules are amended. Where such new comments are added, the new comments are intended to supersede the older comments only to the extent that they are in conflict. However, the presence of both comments is designed to make alterations more readily apparent.

In the event a particular case involves application of a rule as it existed prior to the reformatting and updating of the rules in 2006, please refer to a historical volume of the rules.

Advisory Commission Comments [2007].

The comments to Rule 5 cross-reference the time for setting the preliminary hearing to the time computation provisions of Rule 45. However, Rule 45 does not explicitly apply to general sessions courts by its omission from Rule 1. The 2007 amendment to Rule 1(b)(9) corrects this omission but only concerning the time for setting, and process for continuing, the preliminary hearing once set. There is no intent to impact the requirements of Rule 5(a)(1) dictating that, with certain exceptions, an arrested person must be “taken without unnecessary delay before the nearest appropriate magistrate.” As a result of the 2007 amendment adopting a new (b)(9), the then-existing (b)(9) was renumbered as (b)(10).

The amendment to Rule 1(e)(3) adds “judicial commissioners” to the definition of a magistrate. This alteration makes the rule appropriately consistent with Tenn. Code Ann. §40-5-102 as it relates to courts which exercise jurisdiction at the initial stages of the criminal process as Rules 4 and 5 contemplate.

Advisory Commission Comments [2016].

Consistent with simultaneous amendments to Tenn. R. Crim. P. 5 and 5.1, obsolete references in Rule 1(b) to "preliminary examinations" are changed to "preliminary hearings."

Additionally, the second sentence of the 2006 Advisory Commission Comment (which sentence referred to historical information previously available on the Tennessee Supreme Court's website) is deleted because the information mentioned in that sentence is no longer available on the Court's website.