Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Archives - Page 2 of 2

Settlement requires Memphis Shelby Crime Commission to produce records

By Deborah Fisher|2020-02-23T10:33:24-06:00February 23, 2020|Categories: functional equivalent, public records lawsuits Tennessee|Tags: functional equivalent, MLK50, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, The Marshall Project|0 Comments

The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission has released records about its funding of the Memphis Police Department a year after a public records lawsuit. Wendi Thomas, founder of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, sued the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission over access to its records. Wendi Thomas, founder of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, and The Marshall Project argued that the crime commission was the "functional equivalent" of government because of its significant role in funding police and directing public safety policy in Memphis. Under Tennessee's "functional equivalent doctrine," a government entity cannot avoid disclosure under the state's Public Records Act by delegating its responsibilities to a private entity. Tennessee courts have used the [...]

Reporters Committee, others file amicus brief in Tennessee police records case

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Tennessee Association of Broadcasters, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and the University of Virginia School of Law First Amendment Clinic have file an amicus brief with the Tennessee Supreme Court, arguing that a lower court's ruling went too far in saying law enforcement had the right to keep from public view a broad swath of police records. The case, The Tennessean et al. v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, started after the newspaper requested to see certain police records about a reported sexual assault in a Vanderbilt University dorm room. A trial court ruled that [...]