FPF statement on special prosecutors’ report on Marion County Record raid

Special prosecutors today finally released their report on the police raid of the Marion County Record last August 11. The report recommends criminal charges against former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, and clears the Record and its reporters of wrongdoing. It also warns against search warrants and raids of newsrooms, which almost always violate federal law.

“Last August’s police raid of the Marion County Record’s newsroom and its owners’ home was an affront not only to the U.S. Constitution but to human decency. That’s why Americans across the country and the political spectrum were outraged by what Record co-owner Joan Meyer called ‘Hitler tactics,’” said Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Director of Advocacy Seth Stern. Meyer, 98, died the day after the raid, possibly from shock.

Stern added, “While we welcome the news that the former police chief who orchestrated the raid, Gideon Cody, will be criminally charged, he should’ve been charged with more than after-the-fact obstruction – the raid itself was criminal. And Cody is far from the only one at fault here. We hope he and everyone else behind the raid will also be held accountable, through the criminal courts, civil courts, and courts of public opinion. They should never work in law enforcement or government again. 

“We also welcome the finding that the investigation of the Record and its reporter for using a government website to verify a news tip was baseless. That being said, it should not have taken nearly a year for investigators to reach these extremely obvious conclusions. As we said the night of the raid, journalists are fully entitled to access government records to do their jobs, and raids of newsrooms based on legal theories that criminalize newsgathering are plainly against federal law.” 

The Kansas Reflector also reported yesterday that Judge Laura Viar, who authorized the warrant, told investigators an entirely different story about the events leading up to that egregious judicial error than the one Cody and others told. Nonetheless, she escaped discipline by the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct. 

“Judges across the country are displaying an alarming lack of understanding of or concern for First Amendment protections for the press, with a disturbing lack of accountability,” Stern said. “The investigation of Viar should be reopened in light of the Reflector’s reporting. But she should’ve been disciplined the first time around. There is no excuse for a judge in the United States thinking it’s acceptable to authorize a raid of a newsroom.”