What Happens If You Are Charged with a Crime in Collierville, TN

Collierville, Tennessee is a suburb of Memphis located in Shelby County. Because it is outside of the Memphis city limits, it has an independent municipal government that includes its own court system. If you are charged with a crime in Collierville, your case will be heard in Municipal Court located at 101 Walnut Street.

Collierville Municipal Court is a general sessions court, which means it does not have jurisdiction to dispose of felony cases. Felonies must be transferred to the Shelby County Criminal Court in Memphis for grand jury review. However, if your case is a misdemeanor or if it is a felony that can be reduced to a misdemeanor, it can be settled in Collierville.

Some types of misdemeanors handled in Collierville include shoplifting, minor in possession of alcohol, disorderly conduct, simple drug possession, simple assault, domestic assault, and driving under the influence. If you are charged with one of these crimes, you should do everything you can to avoid a conviction and keep the charge from being permanently on your record. A Collierville criminal defense attorney can help with this.

How the case is resolved will depend on the particular facts of that case. Shoplifting charges in Collierville, for example, carry a sentence of up to 11 months and 29 days. If the defendant qualifies, he or she can be placed on judicial bypass for that period of time and then have the entire case file dismissed and expunged at the end. Alternatively, the case may be resolved through a shorter process in which the defendant pays restitution to the store instead of prosecution. Your attorney can coordinate with the store and the prosecutor’s office on how to do this.

Collierville domestic assault cases can sometimes be resolved without a trial or guilty plea. If the prosecutor’s office agrees, the victim can sign an affidavit stating that she does not want to press charges. The affidavit can be filed in court and the defendant would pay court costs, then the case can be dismissed. Your attorney can draft the affidavit, obtain the victim’s signature, and ensure that the case is removed from your record.

Collierville DUI cases are more difficult. If the state feels they have enough evidence for a conviction, they will not dismiss the charge. When contesting a DUI case, some of the things to consider are whether the police had reasonable suspicion to initiate the arrest, how the driver performed on standardized field sobriety tests, and whether he/she took an alcohol content test in blood and, if so what was the result. There could be many other factors. A Collierville DUI attorney can advise you further after reviewing his case.