Leaders call for better court file tracking

NASHVILLE - Former Judge Casey Moreland’s fingerprints are on several cases even after he should have recused himself because of conflicts of interest during his time on the bench.

Documents suggest Moreland had continued control in those cases, and that may be a symptom of a larger problem. Some city officials and a judicial conduct expert say a lack of case file tracking in the city’s 11 General Sessions courts makes it harder to spot inappropriate influence.

Moreland’s courtroom conduct is the subject of an FBI probe, and last month he was charged with a trio of federal crimes alleging obstruction of justice. He resigned his post on the bench, which he has held since 1998, amid the ongoing investigation.

City officials, including Vice Mayor David Briley, are calling for more oversight of when and how cases are moved between judges. Today, there’s no official documentation to show when a case is transferred.

In one example, when Moreland’s future son-in-law, Chris Plattenburg, was charged with driving under the influence in 2015, records show the case landed in Moreland’s court.

There’s no documentation of Moreland recusing himself and ordering the case transferred to another judge.

But records show General Sessions Judge Aaron Holt signed off on the plea deal and Judge Gale Robinson declared Plattenburg indigent.

That means he didn’t have to pay some court fines, even though probation records show he was working more than 60 hours a week as a radiology technician. There is a document that Moreland later waived Plattenburg’s 10-day jail sentence. Experts have said that action is a violation of judicial ethics rules.

Scope of audit

Concerns flared during a Tuesday meeting of the Metro Nashville Audit Committee. The group called for city auditors to scour how General Sessions cases are managed and tracked, as well as the financials of Moreland’s prized programs: General Sessions drug court, a treatment-focused program, and Cherished HEARTS, a human trafficking intervention program.

The vice mayor at the meeting raised concern about a dearth of paperwork or other tracking that shows when a case moves from one judge to another.

“It seems pretty clear to me that we’re not as a community taking advantage of all the technology that would be available to us to keep track of that,” Briley said.

“The mechanics of that seem at best antiquated,” he said. “It leads to situations where it would seem to me that if a judge was going to recuse themselves from a particular case, there ought to be a clear record that happened.”

The audit expands on a request for a financial review previously made by Robinson, who took over Moreland’s specialty court programs.

It will also focus on how the drug court program and the Davidson County Drug Court Foundation, a nonprofit that provides funding for the drug court and trafficking intervention programs, are staffed. The nonprofit is being audited by the state.

The foundation was started by Bryan Lewis, a lawyer and longtime friend of Moreland’s. Lewis, who until this year was the president of the nonprofit, was publicly disciplined in March by the state board that oversees lawyers for his outside-of-court influence on Moreland.

Late last year, a Metro finance report called into question thousands of dollars of personal expenses put on city credit cards by drug court staff related to a conference in California.

Finance department records questioned $300 in PayPal transactions, and two dinners during the trip of more than $350 each. The Drug Court Foundation repaid the city $3,009 in November, records show.

Nan Casey, director of a program affiliated with the foundation, until recently had an office in the courthouse. Warner Hassell, the General Sessions court administrator, said Tuesday that is no longer the case.