The indictment must state the facts constituting the offense in ordinary and concise language, without prolixity or repetition, in a manner so as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is intended and with that degree of certainty which will enable the court, on conviction, to pronounce the proper judgment. In no case are the words “force and arms” or “contrary to the form of the statute” necessary.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-13-202
Statement of offense
Applied in 21 court decisions — leading case State v. Hill (1997)
Most recently applied in State of Tennessee v. Rhakim Martin (October 2016)
Code 1858, §§ 5114, 5115; Shan., §§ 7077, 7078; mod
How often courts cite this section
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.
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.