A dispute has developed over why a Davidson County grand jury last week recommended that criminal charges be brought against House Speaker Beth Harwell and Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey without actually indicting them, reports The Tennessean.
(District Attorney General Glen) Funk said last week that the grand jury’s recommendation came as a surprise to him. His comments upset Arnett Bodenhamer, the grand jury foreman, who said (Assistant District Attorney Rodney) Faulk was well aware of the group’s discussions.
“His assistant knew exactly what we were doing,” Bodenhamer said. “Because we asked him what we could do. If we had questions about the law or how it read, that’s who we called. I want the truth to be told that we didn’t just do something off the top of our heads without them knowing.”
Bodenhamer said Funk’s office also told the grand jury it couldn’t indict Harwell and Ramsey over their appointments to the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission. But Funk, while noting that the law doesn’t mention any criminal penalty for failing to make appointments that reflect the state’s population, said the grand jury could have indicted the House speaker and the lieutenant governor regardless.
“Our office cannot prevent the grand jury from indicting anybody,” Funk told The Tennessean’s editorial board Tuesday. “I would be surprised if Rodney said that.”
Faulk said that if the grand jury had asked his legal opinion, he would have said that Harwell and Ramsey didn’t commit any crimes. “But if they had insisted they wanted to charge somebody, they would be entitled to do that,” he said.