A Nashville judge is expected to issue her ruling on whether writings left behind by the Covenant School assailant will be released to the public.
Judge I’Ashea Myles had been prepared to issue the 60-page ruling when one of the news outlets suing for the documents’ release published leaked pages of the assailant’s journal.
Myles ordered conservative news site The Tennessee Star to appear in court Monday morning to answer for the leak, but the court pivoted its focus from whether the Star should be held in contempt to whether the leak changes anything about the underlying case.
“We were concerned,” Star attorney Daniel Horwitz told reporters outside the courtroom. “A week ago, the court entered an order suggesting that there were going to be contempt proceedings or sanctions … I’m encouraged that it seems like we have veered off a very dangerous road for threatening reporters for lawful reporting.”
During the hearing, Metro Associate Law Director Lora Fox confirmed that the leaked pages reported by the Star were authentic. She pointed to a former officer as a possible source of the leak.
Last month, retired Lt. Garet Davidson released a 61-page complaint alleging that MNPD worked with state lawmakers to curb the powers of community-led oversight of police. Davidson, who worked in MNPD’s equivalent of internal affairs, also alleged that MNPD leadership mishandled the investigation into the first leak of the assailant’s journal.
In a court filing, a current lieutenant named Davidson as a potential source of the recent leak, noting that he had been interviewed by the Star about his complaint soon before it obtained the pages.
“The enforcement is challenging in these cases,” Fox said. “One option that we looked at, possibly, is making Davidson an unwilling plaintiff and issue an injunction that would require him to return the documents.”
Douglas Pierce, a petitioners’ attorney, objected to involving anyone else in the case.
“If Davidson has anything to do with that leak, that’s only speculation,” Pierce said. “That’s a separate contempt proceeding, and that doesn’t affect the ruling.”
Daniel Horwitz, attorney for The Tennessee Star, focused on the judge’s initial call to appear in court. He quoted the order, which asked his clients to answer how the leak “does not violate the Orders of this Court subjecting them to contempt proceedings and sanctions.”
“I will decide in a subsequent order if there will be other proceedings,” Myles said. The judge reiterated that she wanted to determine if the leak changed the underlying case. All parties agreed that it didn’t.
Myles said she would issue her ruling soon.
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