Attorney Bernard Rhodes advised The Washington Post that County Attorney Joel Ensey withdrew the warrant Wednesday and would go back computer systems, cell phones and data taken through Marion police and sheriff’s deputies from the newspaper headquarters and the house of Eric Meyer, its writer and editor.
An afternoon after the raid, Meyer’s 98-year-old mom, Joan Meyer, collapsed and died. The newspaper attributed her loss of life to tension attributable to the hunt of the house she shared along with her son.
While the newspaper and Meyer now seem to be out of criminal jeopardy, Rhodes instructed that that is not going to be the tip of the incident. He suggested state officers to examine how the raid happened, together with the function performed through Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, who led the hunt.
The Record have been investigating Cody’s departure from the Kansas City, Mo., police power this 12 months, and he had threatened to sue the paper if it printed allegations of misconduct, Rhodes mentioned.
The raid of the small weekly newspaper — nearly exceptional in the United States — was once it seems that precipitated through a dispute involving an area eating place proprietor in Marion, a the town of about 1,900 citizens positioned about 60 miles from Wichita. Kari Newell claimed that the paper’s newshounds had illegally stolen her id to get entry to a central authority database that contained data of her arrest for drunken using in 2008.
The newspaper denied it had accomplished so, however the allegation led officers to search a seek warrant from an area Justice of the Peace pass judgement on to seek the newspaper and the Meyer house.
In a observation, the county legal professional mentioned he had requested a courtroom to withdraw the warrant he sought final week for alleged id robbery and illegal use of a pc.
“I have come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized,” Ensey mentioned. “As a result, I have submitted a proposed order asking the court to release the evidence seized. I have asked local law enforcement to return the material seized to the owners of the property.”
Rhodes referred to as the withdrawal of the warrant “a promising first step” in restoring the newspaper and writer’s rights. But, he added, “it doesn’t do anything to undo the past and regrettably, it doesn’t bring back Joan Meyer.”
Media teams that had protested the police raid cheered Wednesday’s tendencies.
“The Record never should have been subject to this chilling search in the first place,” Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, mentioned in a observation. “This raid never should have happened.”
His crew referred to as at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to behavior an investigation into the raid, together with why a Justice of the Peace pass judgement on, Laura Viar, signed the hunt warrant. The KBI mentioned Tuesday that it had introduced a legal probe however didn’t specify whether or not it was once centered at the movements of the newspaper or the habits of the police. The company mentioned Wednesday that its investigation stays open, despite the fact that it mentioned it might now not believe the items being returned as proof.
PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression, mentioned returning the items and taking flight the warrant “is a first step toward accountability in this unconscionable breach of press freedom.” The group’s Shannon Jankowski mentioned in a observation that the ones answerable for the raid “should be held to account for violating the newspaper’s rights.”
