Tennessee Resisting Arrest Laws: What Counts as Resisting
Tennessee resisting arrest laws require force. Most descriptions of them, including the one this page replaces, leave that out and describe a much broader offense than Tennessee actually wrote.
The Statute Requires Force, and It Is Not Called Resisting Arrest
Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-16-602(a) makes it an offense to intentionally prevent or obstruct an officer from effecting a stop, frisk, halt, arrest or search "by using force against the law enforcement officer or another." Those last words are an element of the offense. It is a Class B misdemeanor, or a Class A misdemeanor where a deadly weapon is used.
The section is titled "Resisting stop, frisk, halt, arrest or search." Nowhere in it is the phrase everybody uses. That is not a technicality. Tennessee resisting arrest laws cover a narrower set of conduct than the name suggests, and the difference is where these cases are won.
Being uncooperative is not the offense. Arguing is not the offense. Going limp, refusing to answer, asking why you are being stopped, none of that is what § 39-16-602 describes. The State has to prove force was used against the officer or against someone else.
That said, this is a real element to contest rather than a loophole to hide behind, and it is worth being straight about why. Section 39-11-106 defines force as "compulsion by the use of physical power or violence" and adds that it "shall be broadly construed." Pulling an arm away from an officer's grip is the classic contested case, and it is genuinely contested. It is not automatically force and it is not automatically nothing.
Resisting and Running Are Two Different Offenses
Fleeing is not resisting. Running from an officer is evading arrest under § 39-16-603, a separate statute. On foot it is a Class A misdemeanor, which is a higher grade than resisting. In a vehicle it is a felony.
| Conduct | Section | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Obstructing a stop or arrest by using force | § 39-16-602(a) | Class B misdemeanor |
| Same, using a deadly weapon | § 39-16-602(d) | Class A misdemeanor |
| Fleeing or hiding on foot from an attempted arrest | § 39-16-603(a) | Class A misdemeanor |
| Fleeing in a vehicle after a signal to stop | § 39-16-603(b) | Class E felony |
| Same, creating a risk of death or injury to others | § 39-16-603(b) | Class D felony |
| Giving a false name to an officer | § 39-16-611 | Class C misdemeanor |
| Approaching within 25 feet after an order to stop | § 39-16-612 | Class B misdemeanor |
Note the grades. The offense everyone worries about, resisting, is the lowest of them. Running is a full grade higher, and the vehicle version carries a mandatory minimum of thirty days, sixty if the flight created a risk to anyone else.
Evading on foot also has its own knowledge element. Section 39-16-603(a) reaches a person who flees or conceals themselves knowing the officer "is attempting to arrest the person" or who "has been arrested." Walking away from an encounter that has not become an arrest attempt is a different situation from running from one that has.
An Unlawful Arrest Is a Defense to One of These and Not the Other
Section 39-16-602(b) states that "except as provided in § 39-11-611, it is no defense to prosecution under this section that the stop, frisk, halt, arrest or search was unlawful." Section 39-16-603 says the reverse for evading: "it is a defense to prosecution under this subsection that the attempted arrest was unlawful," and it says it for both the on-foot and the vehicle version.
Read those together, because they describe the same night. The arrest was bad. If you ran, that is a defense to the charge you are facing. If you pushed back, it is not.
This is the single most commonly repeated error about Tennessee resisting arrest law, and the page this one replaces repeated it. "The arrest was unlawful" gets listed as a defense to resisting in article after article. The statute rules it out in terms. A person who believes otherwise has a reason to physically resist an arrest he thinks is wrong, and Tennessee has written the law specifically to remove that reason.
Excessive Force Is the Exception, and It Has Two Parts
The exception referenced in § 39-16-602(b) lives at § 39-11-611(e)(3). Force may not be used to resist an arrest, search, stop and frisk or roadblock halt known to be made by an officer, unless the officer "uses or attempts to use greater force than necessary" and the person "reasonably believes that the force is immediately necessary to protect against" it.
Both halves have to be there. An officer using more force than the situation called for is not by itself enough. The response also has to be immediately necessary and reasonably believed to be so, which means proportionate and in the moment rather than retaliatory or after the fact.
Where this argument actually gets made is on the recording. Body camera, dash camera, a bystander's phone, the timing of when hands went where. These cases turn on a few seconds of footage far more often than they turn on testimony, which is a practical reason to preserve anything you have and to say nothing that commits you to a version of events before anybody has watched it.
Things That Are Not Resisting Arrest
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Not carrying identification
Section 39-16-611 makes it an offense to intentionally give a false or fictitious name to an officer who has lawfully detained or arrested you, a Class C misdemeanor. The same section says a person's failure or inability to produce a physical form of identification or driver license "is not a violation." Not having your wallet is not a crime and it is not resisting.
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Staying silent
Declining to answer questions is a constitutional right rather than obstruction. It does not become force because an officer finds it unhelpful.
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Arguing, filming or asking why
None of it is force under § 39-11-106. Filming does have one statutory limit worth knowing: under § 39-16-612 it is a Class B misdemeanor to intentionally approach within twenty-five feet of an officer after being ordered to stop approaching or to retreat, during a traffic stop, an active investigation or an immediate safety threat. The distance is the offense, not the camera.
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Tensing up, or being difficult to handcuff
This is the genuinely contested ground rather than a clear answer. It is where the force element is argued, and where the difference between an officer's narrative and the footage usually decides the case.
Resisting Rarely Arrives On Its Own
A Class B misdemeanor carries up to six months and a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars under § 40-35-111(e)(2). On its own that is at the lower end of what Tennessee prosecutes. It is rarely on its own.
It arrives attached to whatever the encounter started as, and it changes the character of the file. A simple possession case reads differently with a resisting count on it. So does a DUI. The count is also frequently the most negotiable thing in the file, which makes it worth understanding rather than absorbing.
If the underlying charge came with it, the pages on assault, drug charges and DUI cover the other half, and the court structure post explains where a misdemeanor like this is actually heard.
Tennessee Resisting Arrest Laws FAQ
Can I be charged with resisting arrest without touching the officer?
Section 39-16-602(a) requires that the obstruction be by using force against the officer or another person. Force is defined at § 39-11-106 as compulsion by the use of physical power or violence, and the statute says it is to be broadly construed. Non-compliance without force does not meet the element.
Is an unlawful arrest a defense to resisting arrest in Tennessee?
No. Section 39-16-602(b) says it is no defense that the stop, frisk, halt, arrest or search was unlawful. The only exception is § 39-11-611(e)(3), which requires both that the officer used or attempted greater force than necessary and that the person reasonably believed force was immediately necessary to protect against it.
Is running from the police the same charge?
No. Fleeing is evading arrest under § 39-16-603. On foot it is a Class A misdemeanor, a higher grade than resisting. In a vehicle it is a Class E felony with a thirty day minimum, or a Class D felony with a sixty day minimum if the flight created a risk of death or injury to others.
Do I have to show identification to an officer in Tennessee?
Section 39-16-611 makes intentionally giving a false or fictitious name to an officer who has lawfully detained or arrested you a Class C misdemeanor. The same section provides that failure or inability to produce a physical form of identification or driver license is not a violation.
What is the penalty for resisting arrest in Tennessee?
A Class B misdemeanor, which under § 40-35-111(e)(2) is not greater than six months and a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars. It becomes a Class A misdemeanor under § 39-16-602(d) where a deadly weapon is used.
Can I film the police during a stop?
Filming is not force and is not resisting. Distance is separately regulated. Under § 39-16-612 it is a Class B misdemeanor to intentionally approach within twenty-five feet of an officer after the officer has ordered you to stop approaching or to retreat during a traffic stop, an active investigation or an immediate safety threat.
The Question Is What the Footage Shows, Not Whether You Cooperated
Austin Tomlinson defends resisting and evading charges in Davidson County and across Middle Tennessee, and takes every case himself. Body camera footage gets overwritten on a schedule, so the sooner a preservation request goes out, the more there is to work with.