Why Rural County Now Paying $3 Million Settlement  Enraged by The Marion County Record’s reporting on a public document about a restaurateur’s DUI, officers of the Marion, Kansas, police department and the local sheriff’s department raided the newspaper, and seized its computers, servers, and cellphones. Editor Eric Meyer had his home raided while his 98-year-old mother Joan – a former editor – watched the police ransack her home in great distress. Joan Meyer died the next day. Marion County has now agreed to pay a total of $3 million to the victims of this raid in 2023 and to Joan Meyer’s estate. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office, for its part in the raid, issued an apology as well as a check: “This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants.” The Freedom of the Press Foundation responded by saying: “The First and Fourth Amendments strongly protect against searches of journalists and newsrooms. “Under the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant must be supported by probable cause, which means a likelihood that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found at a particular place. The government must also specify the place to be searched and the thing to be seized. “When a search warrant targets materials protected by the First Amendment – like notes, recordings, drafts, and materials used or created by journalists – the Fourth Amendment’s requirements must be scrupulously followed, the Supreme Court has said. “This means that judges must be extra strict in applying the Fourth Amendment’s requirements when a search impacts First Amendment rights, which it will any time it involves a journalist or newsroom. What judges should never do is allow overly broad searches where police rifle through journalists’ desks and computer files willy-nilly in the hopes of turning up something ‘incriminating.’” The Freedom of the Press Foundation also noted that Kansas, like most states, has a press shield law that would have required a court hearing before law enforcement could rifle through journalists’ confidential sources. The federal Privacy Protection Act of 1980 requires law enforcement to obtain a subpoena, not just a warrant, thereby giving The Record an additional opportunity to challenge the demand in court. The Freedom of the Press Foundation concluded: “Journalists also have a right to publish information given to them by a source, even if the source obtained it illegally, as long as the journalist didn’t participate in the illegality. That means that if a source gives a journalist a document or recording that the source stole, the journalist can’t be punished for publishing it. “Because these things are not crimes, it also means that accessing publicly available information or publishing information that a source illegally obtained can’t be the basis for a raid on a newsroom or search of a journalist’s materials. “Next time, think before you raid.” Comments are closed.
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