The problem with the court's witch hunt into the leak of police records about the Covenant School shooting is that truthful information about the shooting and shooter is being reported to the public from records that should already have been made public. But the records are being held up by a chancellor now more interested in finding and punishing the "leaker" and possibly even the press.
Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles is going after the press for publishing information from leaked documents from the police investigative file of the Covenant case involving the 2023 school shooting. Specifically, on Monday she ordered Michael Patrick Leahy, editor and owner of the online Tennessee Star, to appear in court on the next Monday, June 17, to explain why his publication of information from leaked documents on his website does not violate her orders and why Leahy should not be held in contempt and sanctioned.
Beleaguered Brentwood attorney Connie Reguli may have done many things wrong, but filing a public records request for county billing records wasn't one of them. The Court of Appeals on May 2 overturned a Williamson County judge's sanctions against Reguli who was concerned she would use the records to lobby against continued taxpayer funding of the legal defense of a former county employee accused of sexual assault.
Longtime WBIR journalist John Becker has filed a lawsuit challenging the University of Tennessee's denial of public records related to its joint venture, UT-Battelle LLC, which runs the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The case is set to be heard on May 31 in Knox County Chancery Court.
A Nashville judge said the expenses related to harassment of a 19-year-old legislative intern by then-state lawmaker Scotty Campbell are exempt from the public records law based on a House rule and a policy on workplace harassment. But Chancellor Russell Perkins refused to buy the state's broad argument that the General Assembly is exempt from the public records law.
