This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene. The Nashville Banner is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization focused on civic news. Visit nashvillebanner.com for more information.
More than a dozen lawyers showed up to Davidson County Chancery Court on Monday expecting a hearing over the Tennessee Star’s publication of leaked documents related to the Covenant School shooting.
Judge I’Ashea Myles orders website to explain why they are not in contempt of court
Instead, an hourlong “landscape hearing,” as Chancellor I’Ashea Myles called it, largely consisted of both sides pleading for her to set aside the matters at hand and instead focus on putting out a long-awaited opinion on whether the Covenant documents should be released.
“I don’t know what we did today,” said First Amendment attorney Daniel Horwitz, who represented Tennessee Star editor Patrick Leahy. “A week ago this was a show-cause hearing, today it was not. I can’t explain how this evolved or why, but I’m glad the press isn’t being threatened with jail time.”
Monday’s hearing was a result of an order by Myles from last week for Leahy to appear in court and show why his publishing of leaked information “does not violate the Orders of this Court subjecting them to contempt proceedings and sanctions.” Leahy quickly made a motion to set aside Myles’ show-cause order, arguing it could potentially breach his constitutional rights. When Myles denied that motion, Leahy appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, but was rejected Monday morning mere hours before the hearing.
But come Monday’s hearing, Leahy was hardly the center of attention.
“The salient issue is that the documents that rest in your possession, which I believe from what you’ve heard today, truly are more than the 80 or so pages that the Star boasts that they have in their possession from the individual that wrongly the appropriated them, far exceeds what’s out there,” said Rocklan King, the Covenant Church’s attorney. “And I believe that clarity on whether those documents that you still have in your possession that have not been disclosed to media outlets deserves a ruling on whether they are open records, subject to the production.”
King called the subject of the leaked documents a “collateral issue,” and while he argued that a third party had “wrongly appropriated those documents from Metro,” he said the collateral issue could be dealt with by other departments and Myles should focus on the matter at hand: whether the Covenant documents are subject to Tennessee’s Open Records Act.
Lawyers on the opposing side of the issue made almost identical arguments. And while Myles was concerned that the leaks would render any ruling she made “moot,” both sides agreed that was not the case.
“I have never seen a public records case like this,” said Deb Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. “She kept asking and asking and asking, ‘Has someone done something that has prevented me from putting a ruling out,' and what seemed to be unanimous among the attorneys is that everybody wants her to rule on the public records case.”
Myles indicated that a decision is imminent, but did not give a date. She did however reveal that she had a “60-plus” page opinion ready to go and had planned to release it on June 14 prior to receiving a call from a WSMV-TV reporter about the Star’s coverage.
Despite Horwitz coming prepared to argue on Leahy’s behalf — and objecting to how the day’s events unfolded — Myles forbade him from making his arguments, saying they were not yet “ripe,” and that while there may come a time for his argument, that time had not arrived. Instead, Myles said the purpose of the “landscape hearing” was simply to determine where the case stood. After his court of appeals request was denied, Leahy appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
“I have heard from the parties the information that I need to know,” said Myles. “If there is a subsequent show-cause proceeding I will ensure that is delineated in a very clear and crisp manner so that your client can prepare with you his counsel and come in and show whatever he needs to show. But before I could do that, I had to get an understanding of the landscape. I have that understanding now.”
At the conclusion of the hearing, as an overflow crowd spilled out into the hallway outside the courtroom, an attorney who wasn’t a party to the case asked the question on the minds of many observers in the gallery.
“So what even happened?”
