Vanderbilt rape case Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

Read Judge Russell Perkins’ ruling in Vanderbilt rape case

Davidson County Chancellor Russell T. Perkins ruled Wednesday that some records in the police file in the Vanderbilt rape case are subject to the Tennessee Public Records Act, including text messages and emails recovered from witnesses or criminal defendants. The ruling rejected an adoption of a law enforcement privilege for pending criminal cases, and said in a footnote that "The Court concludes these text messages are not witness statements that can be shielded from disclosure. Instead, these text messages are memorializations of conduct related to the alleged crime and the alleged cover up." Excerpt: "Taking a case-by-case view as a trial court, the Court concludes that exempting all the records [...]

The Tennessean: Judge rules some Vanderbilt rape case records are open

By Deborah Fisher|2018-08-06T08:56:31-05:00March 13, 2014|Categories: crime records, public records lawsuits Tennessee|Tags: Chancellor Russell Perkins, crime records, open records, The Tennessean, Vanderbilt rape case|0 Comments

This story about the Vanderbilt rape case, written by Tony Gonzalez, was published by The Tennessean on March 12, 2014 and reprinted here with permission. Some records in a high-profile Vanderbilt University rape case should be made available under the Public Records Act, a Davidson County Chancery Court judge ruled Wednesday in response to The Tennessean’s lawsuit against Metro government over access to information. In an 18-page order, Chancellor Russell Perkins ruled that some text messages, emails by witnesses and defendants, and other records given to police by the university were public documents and should be given to a media coalition that sued for access. But those records won’t immediately be provided to [...]