Criminal Court Judge Tom Shriver is under investigation for apparently living outside his judicial district while sitting on the bench here. As it turns out, Shriver sentenced a former Sheriff’s Department employee to probation six years ago for a similar situation.
Ralph E. (Eddie) Smiley, who had worked in the sheriff’s office under former Sheriff Fate Thomas, was indicted in 1991 for voter fraud. Smiley had registered to vote in Davidson County, where he grew up, listing the address of a residence owned by a member of his family. Meanwhile, he actually lived in Mt. Juliet.
When Smiley showed up in Shriver’s court the first time, the judge refused to accept Smiley’s conditional guilty plea and went on to chastise him. According to a 1991 account in The Tennessean, Smiley told the judge that it was “common knowledge” that Thomas expected his employees to vote in Davidson County, even if they didn’t actually live here.
“Are you telling me that Fate Thomas told you to do this?” Shriver asked Smiley. When Smiley said Thomas had not personally given him the directive, Shriver asked, “Somebody else in the Sheriff’s Department told you to do that?”
Smiley didn’t produce any names, and, according to the account, Shriver grew irritated. “You’re telling me that somebody in the sheriff’s office was an accessory before the fact to voter fraud?” the judge said. “I think we should put this plea off and let [Smiley] work on his memory.”
Smiley, who now works for Wheeler Bonding Co., eventually admitted that no one told him to violate the law. Instead, he said he registered in Davidson County because he thought it was expected of him. He received 11 months, 29 days probation after pleading guilty to the fraud charge, although the incident has since been expunged from his record.
Shriver says his own case is not nearly so severe as the district attorney’s office—or his political enemies—would have the public believe. Unlike Smiley in 1991, the judge does, in fact, own a condominium in Davidson County, although he sleeps and spends most of his free time at his wife’s Cheatham County home. It is not clear from the state’s arcane election laws whether the judge is on solid legal ground.
Shriver has managed, masterfully, to turn the tables on the district attorney’s office and divert attention from the question of his residency. By blaming political foes for politicizing an issue that his colleagues have known about for years, he’s managed to raise doubts about the actual gravity of the issue.
Meanwhile, the public record indicates that there was a time when Shriver had a different perspective.
Tam gets tapped
Eager to encourage some changes in Metro Government, Mayor Phil Bredesen has made a new appointment to the Charter Revision Commission, the group that makes recommendations to Metro Council about changes in the structure of local government. Ulitimately, it is up to Metro voters to approve Charter amendments.
Bredesen’s new appointee is his former press secretary, Tam Gordon, who left the mayor’s office last year to become communications director for the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. Metro Council is scheduled to consider her appointment for approval next week.
While the Charter Revision Commission is composed of an impressive list of citizens, including former Metro department directors, it has been conspicuously silent in recommending ballot questions to Metro Council. The mayor would like to see it become more active, which may be his reason for appointing Gordon.
For example, the commission may very well consider lengthening the Metro Council term limits approved by voters in 1994. Bredesen, among others, thinks the two-term limit for Council members is unnecessary because voters already have a habit of ousting a large percentage of incumbents. Why do we need mandated term limits, the mayor and others argue, when Metro voters have proven capable of term-limiting Council members on their own?
Gordon’s appointment, which will probably be approved by Council, may very well help get the Charter Revision Commission moving again. And if repealing Metro Council term limits is on the agenda for the mayor and the commission, Council members—with everything to gain—should have every reason to applaud Bredesen’s appointee.
No vacancy
Popular Davidson County Clerk Bill Covington, a powerful one-man political operation, last year considered the possibility of retiring from local office to go into business for himself. When local politicos got wind of that possibility, a few would-be candidates for his office popped up, including local General Sessions Judge Penny Harrington.
Covington’s potential retirement wasn’t the only news that prompted interest in his job. There was also talk that a brief FBI investigation into Covington’s management of his office would create election-year negatives for the former Metro Council member and state legislator from East Nashville. (As it turned out, the probe fizzled away without the fanfare it began with.)
But Covington has sent a message that he’s not giving up his seat—at least not without a challenge. Covington is, in fact, the only one of several dozen county office holders to qualify to run for re-election next year. He’s filed the required paperwork to run in the county elections, for which primaries are less than seven months away—in May 1998.
The loneliest number
Former one-term Metro Council member Kwame Leo Lillard, best known at the time for being Council’s only black nationalist and for often being the only “no” vote in the entire body, now has his own radio show. Aptly named The Power of One, Lillard’s show airs on Saturdays from 2 to 3 p.m. on WNQM-AM (1300).
To reach Liz, call her at 615-244-7989, ext. 406, or e-mail her at liz@mail.nashscene.com.
