Prosecutor withdraws warrant for Kansas newspaper raid, cites ‘insufficient evidence’
MARION, Kan. — The county prosecutor has withdrawn the search warrant executed at a small-town Kansas newspaper that police raided Friday, the paper’s lawyer said Wednesday. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation confirmed the news.
All electronic devices seized by police will be returned to the Marion County Record, said Bernie Rhodes, a Kansas City, Mo.-based attorney for the Record who also represents The Star.
“We have stopped the hemorrhaging,” Rhodes told The Star. “But it does nothing about taking care of the damage that has already occurred from the violation of the First Amendment in the first place.”
Rhodes called the decision a step in the right direction and said it indicated a clear change since the KBI took over the case from local police earlier this week.
Rhodes’ forensic consultant was en route to retrieve the devices Wednesday. He believed that any further attempt by law enforcement to gather information as part of the case will now be done “in compliance with” the federal laws.
Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the Record, said the edition this week did not have as much enterprising journalism as it normally does because it was “all about us.” But his staff felt proud for getting the paper out and said they would not be deterred.
“You cannot let bullies win,” he said.
Ongoing investigation
The KBI said the investigation remained open but that the probe would proceed “without review or examination of any” of the evidence seized Friday. The KBI said it would present its findings to the prosecutor once its investigation was completed.
In a statement, Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey said he concluded that “insufficient evidence” existed to establish a “legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized.”
Marion Police Chief Gideon
Cody, appointed in May to lead the Marion police force after 24 years with the Kansas City (Mo.) Police Department, has defended sending his five officers to seize journalists’ cellphones, computers and materials.
Rhodes and media law experts have called the search illegal, however, and have said it violated the U.S. Constitution.
Cody could not be reached for comment. He did not respond to a call or email and was not at the police department off Main Street when a reporter from The Star went by Wednesday afternoon.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-pierre told reporters at a briefing Wednesday that she would not get ahead of an ongoing investigation into the police search, but expressed concern over reports on the incident.
“They raise a lot of concerns and a lot of questions for us,” Jean-pierre said during the briefing. “The freedom of the press, that is a core value when we think about our democracy.”
Officers appeared to have been looking for evidence about how the paper obtained information that a local restaurateur, who applied for a liquor license after she lost her driver’s license over a DUI in 2008. In addition to the Record’s newsroom, the police also executed search warrants at the home of publisher Meyer and the home of Ruth Herbel, a Marion city councilwoman.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said the “potential case” remains in Ensey’s hands.
A copy of the search warrant for the newsroom listed identity theft and “unlawful acts concerning computers” as the crimes the police chief told Magistrate Judge Laura Viar that Cody had probable cause to believe had been committed.
A stack of the latest weekly editions of the Marion County Record sits Wednesday t in the back of the newspaper’s offices in Marion, Kan., The front page of the newspaper was dedicated to two stories about a raid Friday by local police on its offices and the publisher’s home.
Lisa Taylor, spokesperson for the Kansas Office of Judicial Administration, said “neither the judge nor the court can comment on a pending matter that could come before the court.”
The newsroom warrant allowed officers and sheriff’s deputies to take correspondence pertaining to business owner Kari Newell, the local restaurateur, along with digital information or items that would establish the use of computers and networks “to participate in the identity theft” of Newell.
‘Seized ... but not silenced’
The family-owned newspaper, which prides itself on being a watchdog in the community about an hour north of Wichita, has said it did nothing wrong and was simply doing journalism.
The Record published its first edition since the raid on Wednesday in honor of Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner who died at age 98 a day after the searches. In her final hours, Meyer had called the raid “Hitler tactics” and had been deeply distressed by the search, her son Eric has said.
The front page of the paper read, “SEIZED ... but not silenced,” documenting a rare episode in American history and letting readers know that their weekly newspaper is not going anywhere.
The raid was condemned globally by news organizations and free press advocates, who said executing a search warrant at a newsroom was “chilling.”
“You and your office should apologize to Mr. Meyer and his staff, the newspaper, and to your community for your egregious actions,” the Illinois Press Association, one of the many groups to weigh in, wrote to the police chief, calling on him to “own it, apologize, and resign.”