Tennessee Firearms Association is one of the parties that has sued the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County to obtain access under Tennessee “Open Records” law to the writings and materials seized from and related to the Covenant Shooter.

These “open records” lawsuits are typically resolved quickly and normally involve the individual or entity that wants to view or obtain copies of public records and are defended by a government entity that has failed to produce the records, typically by claiming that they are exempt. In this instance, the lawsuit was filed when Metro claimed that the records were subject to a pending criminal investigation, which itself seemed odd because Governor Lee had reported and a Metro press release appears to confirm that Metro was going to release some of the “manifesto” records until Metro was sued to get a court order to force it to do at least some of what it had indicated it was going to do.

Indeed, Governor Lee posted on Twitter on April 27, 2023 that “The Covenant shooting was a tragedy beyond comprehension, & Tennesseans need clarity. We’ve been in touch with the Nashville Police Department, & today, Chief Drake assured me that documents & information regarding the shooter will be released to the public very soon.”

So apparently, Metro was going to release documents and information regarding the shooter at some point soon after April 27, but then when it got sued in an effort to force it to release documents and information regarding the shooter, it decided not to release the information that it told Bill Lee it would be releasing. Sounds like everything we should expect as citizens from Metro.

The next unusual step in the effort to see the shooter’s manifesto and other public records concerning the shooting occurred when the Covenant Church, the Covenant School and some large but unspecified number of Covenant parents asked a Davidson County Chancellor, a Democrat, to allow them to “intervene” in the case because they wanted the Court to rule that the records, all the records, concerning the Covenant Church, School and shooting should be permanently sealed from any public inspection. The Chancellor issued an order allowing these “Covenant parties” to intervene and they did so with the help of approximately 20 individual attorneys representing them.

The Chancellor’s decision to allow the Covenant Parties to inject themselves into an open records lawsuit caused a procedural issue to arise which forced the Plaintiffs, including TFA, a retired sheriff, a state senator in his individual capacity, two news agencies and others, to immediately appeal the Chancellor’s intervention order to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. That has occurred.

All of the parties to the appeal have filed briefs (see website for copies). In addition, four additional parties have filed a brief in support of the Covenant Parties. These four additional parties are Franklin Road Academy, Montgomery Bell Academy, Oak Hill School and St. Paul Christian Academy.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear the oral arguments in the manifesto case on Monday, October 16, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. CST. Typically, these oral arguments are streamed live and available for viewing later on the Court’s website as well as the Court’s Youtube channel.