crime records

9 Apr, 2014

Johnson City Press: Closing sexual assault records a slippery slope

By |2014-04-09T16:37:18-05:00April 9, 2014|Categories: crime records, Legislature|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Robert Houk, Opinion page editor for the Johnson City Press, looks at one of the top legislative priorities of the state's law enforcement this year -- closing records related to sexual assault -- and notes the slippery slope when police start advocating to make crime records confidential. His column is reprinted here with permission: Balancing the public’s right to know and personal privacy is not an easy job. It is something we in the news business struggle with every day. Most of the time we get it right. Occasionally, however, we have gotten it horribly wrong. What we don’t need is the Tennessee General Assembly messing with the state’s public [...]

3 Apr, 2014

Bill allowing anonymity to sexual assault victims moves forward

By |2014-04-09T16:38:53-05:00April 3, 2014|Categories: crime records, Legislature|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

From Tom Humphrey's Humphrey on Hill blog on the sexual assault victims bill: After being narrowed from its original scope, legislation to keep some information about rape victims from the public advanced in both the House and Senate on Wednesday. As introduced, the bill by Sen. Becky Massey of Knoxville and Rep. Mary Littleton of Dickson, would have made confidential all identifying information about the victim of a sexual assault from the outset of an investigation by law enforcement into the crime. With amendments since then, the bill (HB2361) would apply only after a defendant had been found guilty either by trial or plea agreement and only keep confidential the name, address, [...]

28 Mar, 2014

TCOG testifies on bill to make sexual assault victims confidential

By |2014-04-14T18:35:45-05:00March 28, 2014|Categories: crime records, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Tennessee Coalition for Open Government's executive director Deborah Fisher offered testimony to the House State Government Committee Tuesday pointing out how proposed legislation to redact the names of sexual assault victims from crime records could reduce the media's ability to report on sexual assault crimes. The House State Government Committee passed the bill, which had been amended by the sponsors from its original version to apply only to cases in which there is a conviction or guilty plea. The bill also allows individual victims to sign a written waiver to opt out of the law's confidentiality requirements. Fisher noted stories by Tennessee media in which public records were used to [...]

22 Mar, 2014

Citizens should have access to crime records

By |2014-04-09T16:29:34-05:00March 22, 2014|Categories: crime records|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Last week in a House subcommittee a police chief expressed alarm that anyone could come in to his department and get access to crime records after a case is closed. He was testifying in support of a bill that would make victims of sexual assault crimes anonymous after the case is over. The proposal would exempt their names and any other potentially identifying information from the Tennessee’s Open Records Act. I applaud that police chief for his stated adherence to Tennessee’s laws, which give any Tennessee citizen access to local law enforcement’s investigations into a crime after the case is over or prosecution is ended. But unlike the chief, I’m [...]

13 Mar, 2014

Read Judge Russell Perkins’ ruling in Vanderbilt rape case

By |2018-08-06T08:52:38-05:00March 13, 2014|Categories: crime records, public records lawsuits Tennessee|Tags: , , , , |1 Comment

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 [...]

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