After a nearly three-year legal battle, a Tennessee civil rights attorney will no longer be gagged from criticizing a private prison. The local federal court has scrapped a rule that restricted lawyers from publicly commenting on their cases.
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee amended the court's local rules last week to remove a provision that assumed out-of-court statements by attorneys were prejudicial. The court proposed amending the rule last month following a federal lawsuit filed by the Nashville-area attorney Daniel Horwitz.
In 2022 a federal magistrate judge issued a gag order against Horwitz barring him from making public comments in a wrongful death lawsuit he was pursuing against CoreCivic, a private company that operates the state's Trousdale Turner Correctional Center (TTCC). The judge also ordered Horwitz to delete dozens of past tweets about the company and threatened him with contempt.
