Group of Private Schools, Nashville DA File Briefs Supporting Attempts to Halt Release of Covenant Shooter’s Manifesto

Assistant District Attorney Roger Moore and District Attorney Glenn Funk talk during a preliminary hearing for Nashville Police officer Andrew Delke at the Justice A.A. Birch Building, on Jan. 2, 2019. (George Walker IV/The Tennesean/AP)

The support for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to deny public records requests which sought the writings of The Covenant School shooter received new backing Monday, June 12, from Nashville’s District Attorney and a collective group of four private schools in a three-mile radius of Covenant.

The District Attorney, along with the group of nearby private schools, argue in support of MNPD’s decision to withhold public records in the newly filed amicus briefs.

As the public records case has moved through the Davidson County Chancery Court, various parties have joined in support of MNPD’s decision to deny public records requests to several parties, which sued the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County following the denials. MNPD also denied requests by The Epoch Times for the same documents.

Chancellor I’Ashea Myles granted the right for Covenant Presbyterian Church, the parents of Covenant school students, as well as the school itself to join the lawsuit as third-party intervenors, a move which is currently the subject of an appeal.

Myles issued a ruling on Monday that the case in her court would continue on schedule, despite a request by parties appealing her decision allowing intervenors to pause proceedings as the appeal works its way through the higher court.

In court last week, the parents of Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale, Ronald and Norma Hale, addressed the judge through their attorney to let the parties know they plan to hand over the rights to their daughter’s writings to the “children” of the Covenant School, i.e. their parents, as they are minors.

The Hale family claimed ownership of the writings, which have been in the possession of MNPD since being seized from their home and their daughter’s car following the March 27 attack.

Attorneys representing some parties suing MNPD filed briefs Monday questioning the Hales’ assertion they became the owners of their daughter’s writings at the time of her death, as no will for their daughter has been found.

Private Schools Decry Security Threat

A group of private schools in a three-mile radius of The Covenant School filed a brief Monday in support of MNPD and the intervenors.

Franklin Road Academy, Montgomery Bell Academy, Oak Hill School, and St. Paul Christian Academy, through their attorneys, collectively state the attack at Covenant is of “utmost concern” to their more than 2,500 students and 450 teachers, faculty, and staff.

The four private schools included this map, showing the relation of their campuses to The Covenant School. The map was included in their brief showing support for the withholding of records related to the March 27 shooting. [Screenshot by The Epoch Times, Chancery Court of Nashville and Davidson County.]

“While each school educates and cares for a different subset of Nashville’s school children, all [parties] have an ongoing fundamental interest in school safety and security,” they write in their brief. “The horrific events at The Covenant School have heightened this interest.”

Attorneys for the collective of schools state, in their perspective, “negative impacts” would result from “disclosure of the assailant’s writings, referred to in the media as a ‘manifesto.’”

“The premature disclosure of the [MNPD] investigative file will seriously risk the ongoing safety of [our] students and educators and those of all other schools in the Nashville community,” they state.

The collective goes on to state exemptions to Tennessee’s Public Records Act for “school security” which they say “precludes public disclosure of parts of the MNPD’s investigative file,” including Hale’s writings.

They go on to warn of the possibility of “copycat” assailants and further state disclosure of the “open and active investigation” files will “complicate the ability of Nashville’s schools” to develop “effective countermeasures for active shooter risks.”

DA Weighs In

Nashville District Attorney General Glenn Funk requests in his filing for the court to set a hearing on whether or not to accept his motion to file his brief for the court’s consideration when deciding the matter.

Funk writes that this case in particular “implicates victims rights in an important matter that may have profound consequences for the [DA Office’s] work.”

Funk’s brief is to assert his support for defining the parents of minor Covenant School students, along with the school and church itself, as victims.

Children from The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., hold hands as they are taken to a reunification site at the Woodmont Baptist Church after a deadly shooting at their school on March 27, 2023. (Jonathan Mattise/AP Photo)

Article One of Tennessee’s state Constitution has what is colloquially referred to as a victim bill of rights, which entitles victims to “be free from intimidation, harassment and abuse” along with other rights such as a right to restitution.

Funk elaborates on the compensation portion of victims’ rights, further quoting a 1976 law that makes eligible various compensation to victims of a crime, dependents of the victim, or a relative of the victim.

“While the Office of the District Attorney General does not represent victims as their lawyer…it is committed to protecting the rights of victims and ensuring their voices are heard,” Funk wrote. “Since learning it was the Petitioners’ position that parents of Covenant victims, the Covenant School, and Covenant Presbyterian Church are not victims in this case, General Funk believes it is his duty to correct this misstatement of the law.”

Funk is referring to a reference made by the attorney of one petitioner, not petitioners as a whole, who in a May hearing on whether intervention should be granted, claimed those parties were not victims and thus had no interest in being approved as third-party intervenors.

That attorney, who represented a media organization and state senator in his private capacity, is no longer on the case, as he requested to withdraw as counsel for a conflict of interest.

The next hearing in the case, the show cause hearing that was originally scheduled to be held last week, is tentatively set for July 12 and July 13, if needed.