Today the Tennessee Supreme Court issued an opinion ordering the release of documents sealed in connection with a criminal case. In April of 2024, three documents—a motion to disqualify and two supporting documents—filed in a Davidson County criminal proceeding were sealed. After learning about the existence of the sealed documents, The Nashville Banner newspaper intervened in the case, seeking to have the documents unsealed. The criminal court denied Nashville Banner’s motion to unseal, and a panel of the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed.
Nashville Banner then appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. The Court first clarified that Tennessee’s Rules of Appellate Procedure allow Rule 10 appellate review to media entities intervening in criminal matters. The Court then reviewed the different legal standards potentially applicable to the decision of a court to seal a motion for disqualification and its supporting documents. The Court held that such documents are protected by the First Amendment.
The Court held that, before sealing documents filed in connection with a judicial disqualification, a court must determine that a compelling interest requires the documents to be sealed. Then, a court must ensure that any seal is narrowly tailored. Finding no compelling interest in this instance, the Court ordered that the documents at issue be made available for public inspection.
Chief Justice Jeff Bivins and Justice Holly Kirby each filed separate opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. Justice Kirby agreed the documents here should not have been sealed under the existing good cause standard. But she argued it was not prudent for the majority to go further in this case and adopt a new compelling interest standard for sealing documents.
Chief Justice Bivins concurred in Justice Kirby’s opinion and disagreed with the majority’s adoption of a new standard of proof. In his opinion, the documents at issue should be unsealed under either a good cause standard or a compelling interest standard. As a result, given the circumstances of this case, it was unnecessary for the majority to resolve the standard of proof issue in this case.
To read the opinion in State of Tennessee v. Randall Johnson (In re: Nashville Banner), authored by Justice Mary L. Wagner, visit the Supreme Court opinions section of tncourts.gov.