General Sessions vs. Criminal Court: What Happens at Each Stage of a Tennessee Case

If you have been charged with a crime in the Tennessee Valley, your case will likely pass through more than one courtroom — and which one you are in tells you a great deal about what stage you are at and what is coming next. Here is a plain-English map of the journey. If you have a court date coming up, call (865) 935-9558.

The two courts, in one sentence

General Sessions Court is where nearly every criminal case starts. Circuit or Criminal Court is where felony cases end up if they are going to be resolved by a jury or by a plea to a felony. Whether your county's felony court is called "Circuit" or "Criminal" is just a matter of local structure — the function is the same.

What General Sessions Court does

General Sessions is the front door of the county's criminal system. It handles two very different jobs at once:

• Misdemeanors, start to finish. For a misdemeanor — a lower-level charge such as a first-offense DUI, simple possession, or simple assault — General Sessions can hear the whole case and dispose of it, if you agree to let it. You can also choose to have certain misdemeanors sent up to the higher court.
• Felonies, but only the early stages. For a felony, General Sessions cannot conduct the trial. Its role is to handle the first appearance, address bond, and hold the preliminary hearing — a checkpoint, not the main event.

Your first appearance and bond

After an arrest or a criminal citation, the first courtroom date is usually an arraignment in General Sessions: the charge is read and you enter a plea of not guilty so the process can move forward. This is also where conditions of release — bond, no-contact orders, and similar terms — are set or revisited. You will almost never resolve the case at this appearance, and you should not try to. Its purpose is to get the case moving on the right footing, which is far easier to do with a lawyer beside you than alone.

The preliminary hearing — the pivot point in a felony case

In a felony case, the preliminary hearing is one of the most useful early stages for the defense. The question at this hearing is narrow: is there probable cause to believe a crime was committed and that you committed it? That is a much lower bar than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard a jury later applies — so a case clearing this hurdle is not a measure of its strength at trial.

What makes the preliminary hearing valuable is the window it opens. It is often the first time the defense hears an officer or witness testify under oath, on the record, about what actually happened. That testimony is locked in, and it can be compared against later accounts. Even when a case is bound over, a great deal is learned here.

The grand jury and indictment

When a felony case is "bound over" from General Sessions, it goes to the grand jury — a group of citizens who review the case in a closed proceeding and decide whether to issue an indictment (a "true bill"). The grand jury hears only the state's side; there is no defense presentation at this stage. An indictment is not a finding of guilt. It is the formal charging document that moves the case up to the felony court.

What Circuit or Criminal Court does

Once a case is indicted, it lands in the county's felony trial court. In our region, felony cases are heard in Circuit Court in Rhea County (Dayton) and Bledsoe County (Pikeville), and in Criminal Court in McMinn (Athens), Monroe (Madisonville), Roane (Kingston), and Meigs (Decatur) Counties. This is where the substance of a felony case plays out:

• Arraignment on the indictment. The formal charges are entered in the higher court and the case is set on its docket.
• Discovery. The defense obtains the state's evidence — reports, recordings, lab results, and the underlying records behind them — and examines it closely rather than taking any summary at face value.
• Motions. This is the stage for legal challenges: motions to suppress evidence from an unlawful stop or search, motions about how statements were taken, and other issues that can reshape or end a case before trial.
• Negotiation. Most cases resolve here, through a negotiated outcome reached only after the evidence has been reviewed — never before.
• Trial. If the case does not resolve, it is tried to a jury, where the state must prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt.

Why the distinction matters to you

Knowing which court you are in tells you what is actually happening. An early General Sessions date is not the moment to make final decisions about a felony — it is the moment to preserve options: to lock in testimony at the preliminary hearing, to get the bond right, and to make sure nothing is conceded before the evidence is in hand. The mistakes that are hardest to undo tend to happen when someone treats an early appearance as the end of the road and pleads before anyone has looked at the case.

Where your case would be heard

Every county we serve uses General Sessions for misdemeanors and for felony preliminary hearings, then its felony court for indicted cases. The courthouses are in Dayton (Rhea), Pikeville (Bledsoe), Athens (McMinn), Madisonville (Monroe), Kingston (Roane), and Decatur (Meigs). We appear in all six, and knowing the local docket and practice in each is part of getting ahead of a case rather than reacting to it.

If you have been charged and are not sure what stage you are at or what comes next, call (865) 935-9558, or the after-hours line at (865) 661-7393. You can also read more on our criminal defense page.

This article is general information about Tennessee law, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for talking with an attorney about your specific situation. Tennessee court procedures and statutes change; this reflects our understanding as of August 2026. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.