A law that tweaks Tennessee’s “guilty by association” statute is now in effect.
Senate Bill 1170, sponsored by Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), makes changes to Tennessee’s law on criminal responsibility, which had stated that a person can be held liable for a crime committed even if they just helped in the act.
“The new law requires the state to prove that a person acted with intent to benefit from the proceeds or results of a crime before they can be held criminally responsible for another person’s conduct,” Senate Democrats said in a statement.
The law also removes criminal responsibility if a felony is committed. Previously, a person could be charged with murder even if they were, for example, the getaway driver, or aided in the crime in another way but did not commit the murder themselves.
An amendment to the bill finds someone criminally responsible if they benefit from the “results of the offense.”
A March 2026 fiscal memorandum said the state didn’t know how many people were incarcerated for being “held criminally responsible for the conduct of another person,” and that the bill would apply to only a few cases.
The note estimated that the impacts to the court system would “not be significant.”
During the 2026 Legislative Session, Akbari said the bill was the end-result of years of collaboration, including a summer study session.
“An example I hear often is a young person is driving a vehicle,” said Akbari during the session. “They know that their friend is going to go in there and possibly rob the store, but they have no knowledge that (their friend is) going to commit murder. So, the person goes in, commits murder, and the driver is also charged with murder …”
The lawmaker said that she was not trying to stop someone from being punished. “If they commit a crime, they should be punished. But aligning the punishment with the crime, that’s our goal.”
