The editor-in-chief and publisher of The Tennessee Star was ordered to appear in court last week and threatened with charges of contempt after his newspaper reported on an anonymously leaked collection of documents authored by Nashville mass shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale. Michael Patrick Leahy was joined by his attorneys in court on Monday for a “show-cause hearing,” where the journalist was asked by Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles to demonstrate why his outlet’s reporting does not subject him to contempt proceedings and sanctions.
On March 27, 2023, Hale (born Audrey Elizabeth Hale) entered the Covenant School armed with three semiautomatic guns and murdered six people, including three 9-year-old children. Hale, who was eventually shot and killed by police in the school, was a transgender man and former student at Covenant who harbored extremist sentiments on race, gender, and politics. The massacre remains the deadliest mass shooting in Tennessee history.
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