Expert: Blocking Nashville School Shooter Manifesto Release Would Alter Tennessee Law
A First Amendment Expert Weighs In on the Release of a Shooter’s Manifesto
In an interview with the New York Post this week, a First Amendment expert emphasized the unprecedented nature of blocking the release of the manifesto of a transgender-identifying woman who shot six people at a Nashville Christian school.
“There’s nothing really to indicate that there would be this ability for victims to veto the release of otherwise public records and in, and in this case, crime records,”
Deborah Fisher, also the director of Middle Tennessee State University’s John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies, explained that there is no historical precedent for victims being able to prevent the release of public crime records.
“In this case, the perpetrator is dead,” Fisher added. “But if the shooter had gone to trial, most likely the writings of the shooter would be part of the evidence in the case about motivation.”
Fisher’s comments come in response to a group of parents and school officials who are attempting to keep the manifesto of the 28-year-old woman, responsible for killing three children and three adults at The Covenant School in March, from being released to the public.
While victims do have privacy rights established in Tennessee law, Fisher explained that veto power over crime records would be a new development.
“There are a lot of reasons not to think that there was ever any intention that there’d be an unspecified kind of veto right of victims to prevent the release of public records,” she said. “If the courts do conclude that victims have a veto over the release of crime records, that would create a whole new equation in Tennessee about what the public gets to know about crime or even possibly criminal trials.”
Several news outlets, including The Daily Wire, have requested copies of the manifesto through open records laws but have been denied thus far. A lawsuit is ongoing to determine whether Metro Nashville Police will be allowed to release the manifesto.
Victims of the shooting:
- Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9
- Hallie Scruggs, 9
- William Kinney, 9
- Headmaster Katherine Koonce, 60
- Cynthia Peak, 61
- Mike Hill, 61
The shooter was shot and killed by Nashville police, who discovered various items at the shooter’s property, including five laptops, a suicide note, two memoirs, five Covenant School yearbooks, and seven cellphones.
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