Nebraska County Pays $3 Million Settlement For Illegal Raid Of Local Newspaper’s Office

from the from-morally-bankrupt-to-actually-bankrupt dept

This isn’t even the end of the fallout, but it’s a lot of it. A small Nebraska town that basically conspired to silence local journalists who were asking too many questions continues to face the consequences of its actions.

That’s a relief. Far too often, power gets abused and the justice system sides with the far-more-powerful abusers. That hasn’t happened here. And maybe that’s because it happened in a small town and involved people whose power was too limited to affect anyone else outside of its jurisdiction.

But it was corruption. And the local government did deserve to get punished. To recount everything that has happened to this point in detail would take a few thousand words. Suffice to say, what happened here rivals anything seen in pop culture that involves the internal rot of small town governments.

Just because you’re wearing a badge doesn’t mean you’re not a bullying thug, as this footage of the (illegal) raid on 98-year-old newspaper owner Joan Meyer’s residence makes clear:

Here’s a quick recap pulled from one of my previous posts, which hits a lot of the highlights (but still remains less than comprehensive):

There’s Kari Newell, a local business person who was seeking a liquor license for a new business when her previous drunk-driving record became public. There’s County Attorney Joel Ensey, who claimed to have no knowledge of the raid until public records showed he actually knew plenty about it beforehand. There’s the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which also disavowed all knowledge, until it became clear it had knowledge as well, at which point it began publicly condemning Chief Cody and his department. There’s the mayor who didn’t like his deputy mayor and seemed to be all too willing to indulge the police chief. There’s the judge who signed off on the search warrants without reading them and then tried to distance herself from actions — a judge who apparently had some drunk driving problems of her own. There are the communications Chief Cody made to Kari Newell, informing her he was going to raid the newspaper to shut down its coverage of her and, presumably, any further investigation into his law enforcement past. In the middle of all of this, there’s some bullshit computer crime charges, which were invoked despite the newspaper accessing driver record data legally through a third party.

Added to that, there’s the fact that Chief Cody told Kari Newell to delete his texts to her, which has led to the now-resigned police chief facing criminal charges for telling Newell to engage in the destruction of evidence.

There’s also the fact that this settlement — obtained with the assistance of the Institute for Justice — is only part of the payout. Former police chief Gideon Cody and the city of Marion are still facing this lawsuit, which is due to enter discovery in the near future.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this settlement isn’t the $3 million that will need to be paid to plaintiffs by a local government that can’t possibly just have that much money laying around. It’s the fact that some of the settlements came with a virtual admission of wrongdoing attached:

The county involved in a small-town Kansas newspaper raid in 2023 will pay a cumulative $3 million to three journalists and a city councilor.

In two of the four agreements, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office also crafted a statement admitting regret.

“The Sheriff’s Office wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record. This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants,” the statement reads.

Unfortunately, those apologies were only extended to the owner of the newspaper (Eric Meyer, whose 98-year-old mother died the day after the raid of her home) and vice-mayor Ruth Herbel, who was somehow dragged into this simply because she clashed frequently with Mayor David Mayfield and was hit with a recall petition created by the mayor’s wife.

The other two journalists receiving a payout from the county (Deb Gruver and Phyllis Zorn) will only get the money. There’s no apology in here for them, despite them being equally subjected to unconstitutional searches and seizures by local law enforcement. I’m sure they’re happy with being compensated for rights violations, but it seems weird the county would not extend the same courtesy to people who suffered through an illegal search just because they were at work (rather than in their own homes) when it happened.

In some cases, law enforcement officials violate rights because they think they’re too big to go after. In other cases — like this one — they seem to do it because they think everyone around them is too small to matter. If nothing else, the outcome of this lawsuit has derailed that misconception and hopefully will deter this sort of thing in the future. If it doesn’t, a city and county that have already committed far more money than they possibly ever expected to shell out at one time will find themselves being bankrupted by people hired to not only serve their residents, but ensure their money is well-spent.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, eric meyer, gideon cody, joan meyer, journalism, marion county, marion county pd, nebraska, phyllis zorn, ruth herbel

Companies: marion county record