UPDATE: At 8:29 pm Thursday evening, Judge Myles issued this one sentence order:
The Court will not hear live from any witness on Monday, June 17, 2024.
* * *
Tennessee Chancery Court Judge l’Ashea L. Myles on Thursday denied an emergency motion submitted on Wednesday by Daniel A. Horwitz, nationally recognized First Amendment attorney, on behalf Michael Patrick Leahy, the editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star and the CEO of Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM) to set aside her June 10 order establishing a show cause hearing for Monday June 17.
Myles is the judge overseeing the ongoing lawsuit which seeks to compel Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to release Covenant killer Audrey Hale’s complete writings, including those some have called a “manifesto,” in which both Leahy and SNDM are plaintiffs. Leahy and SNDM are similarly plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit seeking to compel the FBI to release the documents.
In the June 10 order in which the judge set the show cause hearing, she specifically commanded Leahy to appear in court to explain why news reporting by The Star, which reveals excerpts from the journal written by Hale, should not subject him and SNDM “to contempt proceedings and sanctions” due to unspecified violations of unknown court orders.
Myles on Thursday claimed a “careful reading” of her June 10 order “should indicate” that she “neither set a hearing for civil nor criminal proceedings,” leading Myles to determine Leahy’s motion “premature.”
The judge wrote that Leahy and his attorneys, Horwitz and Nick Barry with America First Legal, must appear in court on Monday to help Myles “ascertain the status and veracity of any alleged leak” of documents “in the possession of this Court” and MNPD.
Myles then raised the prospect of enlisting an outside attorney to pursue contempt charges:
Should this Court determine that an alleged leak did in fact occur by any party to this case and that such action was in violation of the Orders of this Court, or that there has been any abuse of, or unlawful interference with, the process or proceedings of the Court, or any violation as set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated § 29-9-102, this Court may then enter an order and notice appointing an attorney as amicus curiae to the court for investigative purposes, and to initiate and prosecute a contempt citation.
Thursday afternoon Horwitz filed an emergency appeal on Leahy’s behalf with the Middle Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Leahy asked the appeals court to provide a stay to the Show Cause Hearing set in the June 10 order by Myles.
In the first reason cited in the appeal, submitted to the court by Horwitz, it is explained that Myles seems to expect Leahy to release confidential information about his sources in her courtroom.
“First, the Show Cause Order appears to contemplate that Mr. Leahy will be required to disclose information – or the source of the information – that he received through publication, though Tennessee’s media Shield Law forbids any court from compelling him to do that,” the appeal explains, before referencing Tennessee Code 24-1-208(a), which establishes:
A person engaged in gathering information for publication or broadcast connected with or employed by the news media or press, or who is independently engaged in gathering information for publication or broadcast, shall not be required by a court, a grand jury, the general assembly, or any administrative body, to disclose before the general assembly or any Tennessee court, grand jury, agency, department, or commission any information or the source of any information procured for publication or broadcast.
It also notes Myles’ order demands Leahy “demonstrate to the Court’s satisfaction why he should not be subject ‘to contempt proceedings and sanctions[,]'” despite Tennessee law forbidding “such impermissible burden-shifting.”
The appeal additionally notes that Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 42(b) demands courts allow the person allegedly in contempt “a reasonable time to prepare a defense” before a hearing. Leahy was given seven days to prepare his defense.
Further complicating Leahy’s defense, the emergency appeal articulates that Myles did not enumerate which prior court orders he is alleged to have violated.
The appeal declares, “As a result, Mr. Leahy has been left to guess what he is accused of doing that the trial court believes may subject him ‘to contempt proceedings and sanctions.” According to the appeal, because Myles failed to identify the alleged violations, Leahy was not given “meaningful notice of the concerns that he is being addressed.”
Should Myles be contemplating a contempt charge for Leahy, the emergency appeal notes the facts of the case would necessitate a charge of indirect criminal contempt. According to the appeal, however, the proper process for bringing this charge requires giving the accused both the complete information about their alleged offenses and an appropriate amount of time to respond. The appeal claims Myles did not follow this procedure.
While Myles did not identify a previous court order Leahy is accused of violating, “the trial court’s Show Cause Order strongly implies that the trial court interprets one of its previous orders to restrict Mr. Leahy – a reporter – from publishing information about lawfully obtained documents to his readership.”
According to the filing, such a move would be an unconstitutional example of prior restraint, which Cornell Law School explains “describes an administrative or judicial order that forbids certain speech before the time that the communication is to occur.”
The appeal explains, “If that is, indeed, how the trial court views one of its previous orders, then such a prior restraint would suffer from obvious and insurmountable constitutional infirmities.”
While Myles has not identified which previous court orders Leahy is accused of violating, WSMV 4 reporter Stacey Cameron claimed the show cause hearing was only set after he called Myles to ask whether she planned to hold The Star or anyone else in contempt based on the unsubstantiated claim that Leahy and the SNDM violated an unspecified court order.
Nonetheless, the emergency appeal identifies two possible orders, which it notes still fail to support her show cause hearing.
The first order by Myles identified in the emergency appeal was issued on February 13.
In that order, the judge declared any supplemental filings containing direct information about Hale’s writings shall be submitted directly to the judge for review and not made part of public record, that no leaked documents shall be filed with the court, and no party will be allowed to quote leaked documents in their responses to the court.
The second of Myles’ orders identified in the emergency appeal was issued on February 25 as a clarification to the previous order.
Neither of these orders, as noted in both Leahy’s appeal and his previous filing with Myles’ court, specify that he or other litigants are disallowed from publishing newsworthy materials left by Hale.
Because of the alleged defects in Myles’ order, the appeals court is requested to “issue an emergency stay order” to prevent the show cause hearing and ultimately vacate Myles’ decision.
In addition to the emergency appeal, which was filed before Myles’ denial of the emergency motion to set aside her June 10 order, Horwitz subsequently notified the appeals court after the denial that the reasons listed by Myles in her denial for Leahy to participate in the show cause hearing should compel the court to “issue an emergency stay and then reverse the trial court’s Show Cause Order as a result.
At press time, Leahy is expected to appear in court at 11 a.m. on Monday, which is the normal start time for The Michael Patrick Leahy Show on News Talk AM 760. Aaron Gulbransen, a former reporter for The Star, and the executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, will guest host for Leahy on Monday while he is in court.
Read the full emergency appeal filed on Thursday with the Tennessee Court of Appeals:
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
they ignored the law in not releasing them, now an obviously activist liberal judge is weaponizing the justice system to punish the people that did law enforcement’s job in releasing them.
typical liberal stunts
You could have stopped at ” l’Ashea.”
We need to rid this country of these activist judges. They could care less about the Constitution. They believe the law is anything they think or feel it should be.
every time I see some kind of lawlessness, all I have to do is look at the names to see where the issue lies.
l’Ashea L. Myles
judge even.
and here we see that she is ignoring Tn State law? how does a judge get to that position with that kind of hubris??