Police Beat

While a small community is mourning the shooting death of convicted criminal and murder-suspect Leon Fisher, the rest of Nashville is wondering why he was on the streets rather than in jail.

“I think that’s the issue here,” Mayor Phil Bredesen told the Scene earlier this week. According to Bredesen, the real lesson of the incident, which also involved the retaliatory torching of a Dollar General store in the Sam Levy public-housing project, may be found in an examination of the criminal justice system. Fisher had been convicted eight times for various crimes in Nashville, yet he had avoided spending any substantial time in jail. “The issue for me is that somebody like this, at some point, should have been brought to trial for one of these things and be off somewhere in the state pen,” Bredesen said. “If we can ask anything about this whole thing, it’s ‘What was this guy doing on the street?’ ”

A thorough examination of court records and warrants against Fisher pieces together a disturbing picture of the system that allowed him, over and over again, to slip through the cracks and make his way back to the Sam Levy homes to sell drugs, carry weapons, and outfox police. From 1993, the year of Fisher’s first adult arrest at age 18, until this past Sunday, when he was killed after evading, and then striking, an officer, Metro Police have issued more than 30 warrants against him. He appeared in court only a few times, each time paying easy cash to bonding companies.

Over a period of more than four years, Fisher served a total of only 16 days in jail—once for three days and another time for 13 days. Every time he was brought in and charged with a crime, he was able to post bond to secure his freedom.

During the past year alone, Fisher put down at least $4,100 of his own money—all of it non-refundable—in order to be released on bond. During the three preceding years, he had been convicted eight times on charges ranging from drug possession to criminal trespassing to evading arrest and vandalism.

Apparently, it wasn’t until shortly before his death that Davidson County court officials began to notice the frequency and severity of the charges against Fisher. Only then, court documents indicate, did they begin upping the ante and setting higher bond amounts for him. But even then, Fisher had no problem coming up with the money he needed to assure his release.

For the record

Here is a brief summary of Fisher’s run-ins with the Davidson County court system:

March 16, 1993 First arrested as an adult, charged with driving without a license. He was convicted, fined $25, and made to pay $136 in court costs.

April 29, 1993 Charged with criminal trespassing. The charge was eventually retired, although court documents do not clearly indicate why.

Sept. 20, 1993 (five months later) Charged with unlawful possession of a weapon. In exchange for retiring the charge, Fisher forfeited the gun.

Oct. 12, 1994 Charged with criminal trespassing, driving without a license, and evading arrest. He was convicted on all three counts, given a combined 120-day jail sentence, and made to pay a $160 fine. The jail sentence was suspended. Fisher served no time.

Nov. 15, 1994 Charged with driving with a suspended license. He was convicted and given a 30-day suspended jail sentence and a $50 fine.

Nov. 1, 1995 (one year later) Served with five warrants—two for criminal trespassing, others for possession of drug paraphernalia, tampering with evidence, and driving without a license. All charges were later retired, although it is unclear why. Officials say charges are retired for various reasons, including the lack of a witness.

December 1995 Charged again with driving with a suspended license. This charge, too, was eventually retired.

January 1996 The same story. Police charged Fisher with resisting arrest, but the charge was eventually retired.

March 24, 1996 Arrested for simple possession of drugs. (He was carrying marijuana in his pocket.) Fisher was convicted and served three days in jail.

July 18, 1996 charged with resisting arrest, vandalism, and driving without a license. For the first time, Davidson County officials appeared to get serious with Fisher. The charges were sent to the county’s Grand Jury, which indicted Fisher. He went to court, where he pleaded guilty to vandalism and resisting arrest. Fisher served a total of 13 days in jail for the two convictions and paid $100 in restitution for the vandalism.

That’s where Fisher’s convictions end. When he died, however, another 13 warrants against him—all issued this year—were still pending. Following the developments of this week, those 13 charges have been dropped. In legal parlance, they have been “abated by death.”

Escape clause

Gesturing toward a thick pile of warrants for Fisher’s arrest, Charles Ware, chief administrative officer of the Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk’s office, says, “OK, this is where he comes downtown, and his bond should be a whole hell of a lot higher.”

On May 17 of this year, eight warrants were still pending against Fisher. In other words, he had been charged with eight crimes and was waiting on court dates at which the cases would be heard.

It was on May 17, however, that he was stopped near the Sam Levy homes for having the wrong tags on his car. Fisher tried to run. When police caught up with him, he had no identification and had in his possession 54 grams of crack cocaine and a 9mm handgun. He had, the previous month, put up $1,000 in his own money to be released for warrants that were already outstanding. He had put up even more cash before that.

This time around, Night Court commissioner Howard Taradash decided to set Fisher’s four bonds at a collective $22,000, higher than the $500 and $1,000 bonds Fisher was used to.

“You’ll notice Fisher was always or almost always released the same day he was jailed,” Ware says, pointing to the back of one of the criminal warrants. “That’s because he didn’t have any trouble coming up with the cash to make bond.”

Despite the higher bond amounts, Fisher was back on the street the same day, having paid $2,200, or 10 percent of the $22,000, to get out. He appeared in court on July 23. At that appearance, the cases were set to be heard on Sept. 3, about three weeks from now.

Ware says an automated computer system may be in place by February or March to help keep criminals like Fisher from going so long without prosecution. “The judges will be able to sit on the bench and pull all this stuff up,” he says. “A lot of this will be solved when we get the system in.”

For his part, Bredesen says he wants to try to compile a list of people like Fisher who have rap sheets long enough to cover a conference room table. “One of the obvious questions is, ‘Can we pull up on our computers other people who are on the street who have similar long lists of things?’ We ought to make some attempt to do something different—if it’s legal to do that, and I think it is.”