NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The Covenant School community is facing a new leak of documents.
In recent days, unsettling excerpts from the shooter's diary appeared on The Tennessee Star's website.
The conservative news outlet is a party in the public records case, so this could be problematic.
"In this context, you have a party who has published something in direct contravention of a court order," said NewsChannel 5 Legal Analyst Nick Leonardo. "Even though you have Tennessee Annotated — that provides a lot of protection and defense for media outlets and journalists for publishing stories as to where they got the information from — it's a little bit different because they're a party in this litigation."
For weeks, a Davidson County judge has been deliberating: Should the writings by The Covenant School mass shooter be released publicly?
Now, a hearing has been scheduled for Monday, June 17 at 11 a.m. to discuss the recent excerpts that were released. The judge will ask how The Tennessee Star's articles don't hold them in contempt of court. NewsChannel 5 doesn't have copies from The Tennessee Star. The outlet claims to have 80 pages of writings by the shooter and other documents from the police case file.
Back in November, a conservative commentator released three pictures of journal entries. At the time, the Metro Police Department launched an investigation. Today, in a response to a question we emailed the department, a spokesperson said no, it doesn't suspect the former detective was involved this time. As for this release, they say they are very concerned and want to know how this happened and who is involved, and they are taking steps to figure that out.
In the public records case, there are three separate groups arguing over what is and isn't public record.
Leonardo says it is likely that whatever the chancery court decides will be appealed.
"And this is just but one more issue that raises a great constitutional issue, and that is do we have a right to publish this? Or an excerpt of this? And typically you would under the statutory scheme, however, when you're a party, that's a really a much different issue, and, quite frankly, an issue of first impression in a lot of ways," Leonardo said.
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
