Tennessee Supreme Court agrees to hear public records case involving police files

By |2015-01-19T10:30:15-06:00January 19, 2015|Categories: crime records, public records lawsuits Tennessee|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments

The Tennessee Supreme Court has granted the application of The Tennessean and other media organizations to appeal a Court of Appeals decision regarding what police records are exempt from the Tennessee Public Records Act. In a Sept. 30 ruling, the Court of Appeals said that Criminal Court Rule 16(a)(2) acts as an exemption to allow police to withhold records relevant to an ongoing investigation. The opinion was written by Judge Richard Dinkins and joined by Judge Frank G. Clement Jr. and reversed a trial court ruling that police must release some records. A dissent was written by Judge Neal McBrayer, who said that the criminal court rule exempted some records, [...]