On Wednesday, February 4, a Tennessee Court of Appeals partially overturned a trial court’s decision to hide documents related to the horrific, premeditated 2023 Covenant School shooting in which a mentally ill woman murdered three children and three adults.
In the case of Brewer v. Nashville, on appeal from the Chancery Court for Davidson County, the 34-page decision of the appeals court both affirmed in part and reversed in part the trial court’s decisions, and remanded (or sent the case back) with instructions to conclude the findings, “as expeditiously as possible” and under an “expedited schedule.”
“The Court of Appeals decision in the Covenant Manifesto open records matter is a substantial victory not just for those who are interested in the public records regarding this tragic murder but to all Tennesseans who are concerned about accessing government records as required by state law,” said John Harris, Executive Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association.
Soon after the March 27, 2023 massacre, the Metro Nashville Police Department received several public records requests seeking information related to the shooting, and denied all such requests, citing an ongoing investigation. The requestors then filed petitions in the Davidson County courts, which eventually consolidated all requests into one action.
The lawsuit against the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department was backed by the Tennessee Firearms Association and Judicial Watch. Opposing the move to open the records in the suit were the private school at which the shooting occurred (Covenant School) and its affiliated church, along with parents of surviving children.
The case caught national media attention because leaked documents (later confirmed to be authentic by Nashville police chief John Drake), which included a portion of the shooter’s manifesto, along with other publicly available information, showed that the 28-year-old female criminal had a mental health disorder, embraced leftist “trans” ideologies, and was racially motivated by explicit anti-white animus.
In its recent decision, the appellate court declared that the investigation itself – closed in April of 2025 – was no longer a relevant reason to seal documents. The court also pointed out how the lower court erred in attempting to use the “school security” exemption to the Tennessee Public Records Act to cover every single “…item compiled or created by the shooter, for many years before the event at issue…”
The court also rejected the argument that the Copyright Act preempts the Tennessee Public Records Act, along with the argument that Covenant parents could block records because they were entitled to protections under Tennessee’s Constitution and victim’s rights statute.
With this backdrop, the appeals court remanded the case back to the trial court with instructions that, “No record in Metro’s file should be deemed exempt ‘simply because it contains some exempt information.'”
The parents of the deceased shooter attempted to protect the disputed writings by placing them in a trust and transferring all intellectual property rights to the owners of the trust, the Parents of Covenant children. In its remand instructions, the appeals court affirmed “…the trial court’s finding that the intervening parents have standing to raise arguments under the United States Copyright Act.”
The FBI has published a vault of records related to the shooting that is publicly available here.
