Kansas County to Pay $3M Over a Raid on a Small-Town Newspaper

By John Hanna and Heather Hollingsworth

A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom.

Marion County sheriff’s officers were involved in the raid on the Marion County Record and helped draft search warrants used by Marion city police to enter the newspaper’s offices, the publisher’s home and the home of a local city council member.

The raid prompted five federal lawsuits against the county, the city of Marion and local officials. Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old co-owner of the paper, died of a heart attack the next day, something her son Eric Meyer, the paper’s editor and publisher, blames on the stress of the raid.

During the raid, authorities seized cellphones and computers from the newsroom and rifled through reporters’ desks. Search warrants linked the raid to a dispute between a local restaurant owner and the newspaper, which had obtained a copy of her driving record while reporting on her request for a city liquor license. The raid also came after the newspaper had dug into the background of the police chief at the time who led the raid.

The raid triggered a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills some 150 miles southwest of Kansas City, Missouri.

An attorney for the newspaper, Bernie Rhodes, released a copy of the five-page agreement resolving legal claims against the county. Claims against the city and city officials have not been settled, and Meyer said he believes they will face a larger judgment once those claims are eventually resolved.

Raid’s legality was questioned

Under the judgment, the estate of Meyer’s mother will receive $1 million. Meyer, two former Record reporters and the paper’s business manager will split $1.1 million, and Ruth Herbel, the former city council member, will receive $650,000. Meyer said he’s considering a fund to ensure that the paper remains financially viable or a program to encourage young journalists to work in communities like his.

“The goal isn’t to get the money. The money is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The press has basically been under assault.”

Three days after the raid, the local prosecutor said there wasn’t enough evidence to justify it. Experts said Marion’s police chief at the time, Gideon Cody, was on legally shaky ground when he ordered it, and a former top federal prosecutor for Kansas suggested it might have been a criminal violation of civil rights.

Doug Anstaett, a retired Kansas Press Association executive director, said that the raid violated the state’s shield law for journalists. It allows law enforcement agencies to seek subpoenas to obtain confidential information from news organizations but requires them to show a compelling interest and that they can’t obtain it in another way. Anstaett was the association’s executive director when the law was enacted in 2010.

The Record is known for its aggressive coverage of local issues, and Anstaett suggested police where trying to “get at” Meyer because of his adversarial relationships with local officials, adding, “it totally backfired.”

“They didn’t follow any of those requirements and therefore it was really a slam dunk in terms of whether they broke the law or not,” he said.

Genelle Belmas, a University of Kansas professor who teaches media law, described the raid as “an egregious violation of the First Amendment rights” of Meyer and the weekly.

“I share his hope that an award of this size serves as a deterrent against future ill-conceived warrants with political motivations,” she said. “And no amount of money brings Joan Meyer back.”

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