Newly released video shows Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Ed Stanton appearing before the Tennessee Supreme Court. Stanton was ordered to appear last week and explain why he has refused to comply with several orders from the Supreme Court Justices.
This all goes back to a local man who was trying to get his case expunged.
Since 2015, the Supreme Court judges have sent several orders for Stanton’s office to make it happen. Frustrated, they ordered Stanton to appear and explain himself.
Ed Stanton stood before the Tennessee Supreme Court as justices told the clerk they had serious concerns about how his office was being run.
“I have been an appellate judge for almost 25 years, never ever have I seen the highest court of the land bring somebody up, the elected clerk, because of the court’s concern that there may be a pattern or practice of inappropriate rejection and treatment of people who seek to file,” said TN Supreme Court Justice Holly Kirny.
One of the justices’ concerns is that Stanton’s office is denying people without lawyers access to the court system. Stanton and his staffers admitted until recently that was the policy.
“My predecessors, we just followed their processes. It’s antiquated, it’s outdated, and we will work on it,” said Stanton.
Stanton says he only found out a few weeks ago that since 2015, his office had been receiving and ignoring orders by the state Supreme Court, and he apologized.
“I know never to neglect a court order and when I found out about it, I told my staff to do what you have to do to comply not only with this court, but any court,” said Stanton.
Stanton’s office has 30 days to write new policies and procedures for the office and submit them to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
The Local I-Team asked Stanton for an interview. Instead he released this statement:
“The Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk’s office is continuing to work, at the direction of the County Attorney’s Office to ensure full compliance with the Court’s order. While our office has remained committed to co-sponsoring several expungement clinics throughout the community and has processed over 26,000 expungements in 2018, any one individual who has had their expungements rights delayed is one too many and unacceptable. To ensure incidents such as this does not occur in the future, additional procedural protocols and safeguards are being implemented.”
With regard to your inquiry concerning Mr. Lee, his record has been expunged.”
