Tennessee’s Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a ruling that mandated law enforcement officials to release their investigation of Naomi Judd’s death publicly.
The state’s highest court remanded the case back to the lower court for one more hearing and didn’t rule on whether the records can be released, making it an unofficial ruling.
Judd’s family filed a petition in Williamson County Chancery Court in August, pledging for the investigation report to be sealed. The family said police data contain video and audio interviews with relatives in the immediate aftermath of Judd’s death.
Releasing such details would inflict “significant trauma and irreparable harm” on the family, the petition said. It argued that the police investigative files are covered by an exemption to the state’s public records law….