The Attorneys' guide to bailing their friends out.

It finally happened, you hear, "an inmate from the Shelby County Correctional Center is attempting to contact you."  You knew this day would come, your friend finally got put in jail.  But why are you getting the call? You practice employment law.  All you know about criminal law is how to get speeding tickets.

This guide is to help those attorneys whose practice is far removed from criminal law.

1. Answer the call if you can. Which means you will have to pay, unless your friend in jail put money on the books.  Most likely isn't going to happen. So be prepared to dash to your wallet.

2. In most cases the person will be entitled to a bond. It may take a couple hours for a bond to post so tell your friend to enjoy a  new situation while they wait.  That's when you, the attorney, go to the Shelby County Inmate sight to see the bond amount.  For those of you that don't know:  a bond secures that the person will show up to court.

3. After you figure out the bond, you need to contact a bonding company or expect to pay a cash bond. Bonding companies make you only pay a percentage of the total bond amount. They are on the hook if your friend doesn't show back up. (Not good)

4. Now you have the bonding company, and it's time to get your friend out of jail. The bonding company will post the bond and your friend will be processed out. Once again, this may take a couple of hours.

5.  If you can't bond your friend out, then the next business day he will be arraigned.

6. If they do bond out immediately,  then arraignment will be the following business day as well.

7.At this point, you will want to contact a criminal defense attorney so you can hire them or so they can help you with the process.

As you can tell, it is a rather simple but foreign process to many.

*make sure to ask your friend why they were arrested. This will be important!

Domestic Violence and the Standard a person is held too.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: The Reasonable person standard.

I was asked by a friend of mine to examine and explain what constitutes Domestic Violence when no physical injury has occurred.

Unfortunately, that answer is as not so simple, but I will try to shed some light.

In Tennessee, to be convicted of assault without injury occurring then the Defendant must, " Intentionally or knowingly cause[s] another to reasonably fear imminent bodily injury; or

 Intentionally or knowingly causes physical contact with another and a reasonable person would regard the contact as extremely offensive or provocative."  T.C.A. 39-13-101  Even though this is vague, a Reasonable Person does have a definition. 

Still confused?  Basically a reasonable person is what a normal person in the same situation would have done or thought.  For example, would a reasonable person think someone is trying to assault them if they were giving them a hug and that person was a close friend?  No, a reasonable/ normal person would not think that.  So, in a perfect normal world, that would be unreasonable.  But this is not a perfect, normal world, and people have fears and take actions differently. So, sometimes that is taken into account.  Does the "friend" know about these fears? That can potentially change the outcome of this case.

Now, Mississippi has a different interpretation of what constitutes an assault.  It states, "attempts by physical menace to put another in fear of imminent serious bodily harm."  MS Code Annotated. 97-3-7.  This definition is more focused on what that Defendant did. Also, it seems to take away the reasonable test.  For example, if two friends were having a nice chat and one friend decides to make a playful but potentially menacing stance towards the other, then this could be assault.  Would it be reasonable within the context, probable not, but none-the-less it could be charged as assault.  The law on its face does not look at whether it was reasonable for the victim to think what he/she thought.

This is why prosecutors and police have discretion in these matters.  But, once a matter is charged and the prosecution has started that is where Defense attorneys have a hard time.  Two levels though the charge was reasonable, so we have to show unreasonableness or present the context.