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Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-113

Mitigating factors

Known as the Tennessee Criminal Sentencing Reform Act

The act spans §§ 40–40 (69 sections).

Applied in 60 court decisions — leading case State v. Dykes (1990)

Most recently applied in United States v. Russell (May 2025)

Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 6.

How often courts cite this section

19902000201020202025100
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.

If appropriate for the offense, mitigating factors may include, but are not limited to:

(1) The defendant's criminal conduct neither caused nor threatened serious bodily injury;

(2) The defendant acted under strong provocation;

(3) Substantial grounds exist tending to excuse or justify the defendant's criminal conduct, though failing to establish a defense;

(4) The defendant played a minor role in the commission of the offense;

(5) Before detection, the defendant compensated or made a good faith attempt to compensate the victim of criminal conduct for the damage or injury the victim sustained;

(6) The defendant, because of youth or old age, lacked substantial judgment in committing the offense;

(7) The defendant was motivated by a desire to provide necessities for the defendant's family or the defendant's self;

(8) The defendant was suffering from a mental or physical condition that significantly reduced the defendant's culpability for the offense; however, the voluntary use of intoxicants does not fall within the purview of this factor;

(9) The defendant assisted the authorities in uncovering offenses committed by other persons or in detecting or apprehending other persons who had committed the offenses;

(10) The defendant assisted the authorities in locating or recovering any property or person involved in the crime;

(11) The defendant, although guilty of the crime, committed the offense under such unusual circumstances that it is unlikely that a sustained intent to violate the law motivated the criminal conduct;

(12) The defendant acted under duress or under the domination of another person, even though the duress or the domination of another person is not sufficient to constitute a defense to the crime; and

(13) Any other factor consistent with the purposes of this chapter.

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.