NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The battle over leaked pages of the Covenant School shooter's journal was back in court on Monday.
It was not the showdown those involved in the public records case were expecting.
A judge asked the Tennessee Star to appear after disturbing excerpts from the shooter's diary were published by some media outlets.
All of this is happening while the victim's families have said they don't want anything released.
The highly anticipated, special-called hearing after last week's leak drew quite the crowd. But it wasn't the contempt of court hearing it was made out to be.
This leak marked the second time some of those pages made their way into the public eye.
Judge I'Aesha Myles had said in a motion that she wanted the Tennessee Star to show it did not violate an order of the court when it gave pages of the journal to other media outlets and to explain why she should not hold them in contempt of court for publishing parts of the journals.
Instead, she essentially polled attorneys to see if the recent leaks would make a ruling from her a moot point.
"Because I don't watch the news, I don't do my own investigation, it's best I have the attorneys to come in and really let me know what is going on," said I'Aesha Myles.
On Friday of last week, a filing alleged a connection between the MNPD whistleblower and the recent Covenant school records leak.
It's been more than a year since the shooting and the case file is still in the court's possession and marked as evidence in the ongoing investigation.
Judge Myles stated at the beginning of the hearing that she was prepared to release a 60+ page ruling last week until she learned about the recent leak.
Additionally, Metro legal brought up an option to hold former Lt. Davidson as involuntary plaintiff. Other petitioners argue that there does not need to be anyone added to this case.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
