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Community Review Board authorizes FOIA petition for TBI warrant served on Butler Snow law firm
Summary
The Nashville-Davidson County Community Review Board voted to authorize Executive Director Fitchard to seek a Freedom of Information Act petition for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation warrant served on Butler Snow LLP.
The Nashville-Davidson County Community Review Board voted to authorize Executive Director Fitchard to seek a Freedom of Information Act petition for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation warrant served on the Butler Snow LLP law firm.
Board members said the request aims to provide the public with information about how much the city is paying outside counsel and whether work on the investigation is progressing. "If this firm has been around and been doing this for a year with no update to the public, the public should deserve to know how much we're paying," a board member said during the meeting.
The request followed an executive committee directive that asked for an itemized billing and payment breakdown for investigative services rendered by Butler Snow attorneys Edward Stanton and Keenan Carter from May 31, 2024, to the present. The board said it had not received a substantive status update on the underlying investigation and sought billing details as a public guidepost for when work might conclude.
Board counsel and other members also discussed related records-access efforts. Attorney Brazil said a draft memorandum of understanding to permit Rule 16 access from the district attorney's office had been transmitted for review, and she expected no objection from the DA's office. Separately, a board member said proposed edits from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to a separate TBI MOU were “unsatisfactory” and should be reviewed by the executive committee.
The motion to authorize Director Fitchard to seek a FOIA petition passed after a voice vote. The board did not identify a public timetable for any FOIA response or for release of billing information.
Context and next steps: board members voiced frustration about the pace of outside investigations and unequal staffing levels between the board’s investigative resources and agencies with access to records. The motion gives Fitchard authority to pursue the warrant records through public-records processes; it does not itself compel any agency to disclose information beyond what law requires.
