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Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-12-101

Criminal attempt

Applied in 51 court decisions — leading case State v. Banks (2008)

Most recently applied in United States v. Tarrence Parham (October 2024)

Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

1994200020102020202450
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) A person commits criminal attempt who, acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for the offense: Intentionally engages in action or causes a result that would constitute an offense, if the circumstances surrounding the conduct were as the person believes them to be;

(2) Acts with intent to cause a result that is an element of the offense, and believes the conduct will cause the result without further conduct on the person's part; or

(3) Acts with intent to complete a course of action or cause a result that would constitute the offense, under the circumstances surrounding the conduct as the person believes them to be, and the conduct constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of the offense.

(4) Conduct does not constitute a substantial step under subdivision (a)(3), unless the person's entire course of action is corroborative of the intent to commit the offense.

(5) It is no defense to prosecution for criminal attempt that the offense attempted was actually committed.

Current official text: Tennessee Code (LexisNexis). Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Tennessee statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.