Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-16-503

Tampering with or fabricating evidence

Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case State v. Patton (1994)

Most recently applied in State of Tennessee v. Glover P. Smith (June 2014)

Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

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) It is unlawful for any person, knowing that an investigation or official proceeding is pending or in progress, to: Alter, destroy, or conceal any record, document or thing with intent to impair its verity, legibility, or availability as evidence in the investigation or official proceeding; or

(2) Make, present, or use any record, document or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent to affect the course or outcome of the investigation or official proceeding.

(3) A violation of this section is a Class C felony.

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.