On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Sep 20, 2020 | Federal Appeals
Anyone who doesn’t get the outcome that they expect during a criminal trial may naturally hope that they can appeal the verdict. Appeals are a little more complicated than that, however. An appeal can only happen if there is a clear reason why that case needs to be...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Jan 8, 2019 | Federal Appeals
You may remember the plight of Matthew Charles. Convicted for a crack offense, Charles was lucky enough to be released from prison in 2016, nearly a decade before his term was up. He had been saved — he thought — by a reduction in the federal sentencing...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Nov 27, 2018 | Federal Appeals
In 2015, Tyson Timbs pled guilty to heroin charges and sentenced to five years’ detention and probation. However, since his 2012 Land Rover was allegedly used to transport the drugs, the state of Indiana seized it as property that had been involved in crime. The...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Oct 22, 2018 | Federal Appeals
If you can’t afford to pay your Tennessee traffic ticket, the state may have threatened to take away your driver’s license — or it may already have done so. If so, you probably thought that license revocation was a strikingly counterproductive way of...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Aug 2, 2018 | Federal Appeals, State Appeals, Tourist Criminal Defense
For most college students, their first party is a rite of passage. First-year students will walk through the door of a fraternity or campus house and smile in the excitement of their newfound freedom. But with newfound freedom comes responsibilities. Alcohol is a...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Jul 11, 2018 | Federal Appeals
A federal judge has ruled that Tennessee’s practice of revoking driver’s licenses merely because defendants can’t afford to pay court fines and fees. Since the law doesn’t provide an exception for the indigent, it violates people’s right...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Jun 7, 2018 | Federal Appeals
The U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed that police need to obtain a warrant to search the premises around someone’s home, even if they think they have spotted stolen property there. They aren’t allowed to take a quick peek and initiate a search based on...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | May 18, 2018 | Federal Appeals
When you’re driving in your own car, the police can’t just pull you over for no reason — they need reasonable suspicion that you’ve committed an offense. Once they’ve stopped you, they need probable cause to believe that a crime has been...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Apr 4, 2018 | Federal Appeals
Not all evidence is admissible in a courtroom. Mistakes can be made throughout police investigations, and illegally obtained evidence can be tossed. In a suppression hearing, a judge will decide if evidence should be suppressed. What kind of evidence is inadmissible...
On behalf of Patrick T. McNally, Attorney at Law | Feb 22, 2018 | Federal Appeals
The U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of an appeal for a man who styles himself a “constitutional bounty hunter.” He pled guilty to a gun possession crime but then sought to appeal the constitutionality of the statute. Ordinarily, a standard...
