(CN) — Genelle Belmas hasn’t been sleeping well the past few nights.
Since the 1990s, she has been teaching media law to journalism students, most recently at the University of Kansas. She instructs on all the applicable case law regarding the rare searches of newsrooms — cases like Zurcher v Stanford Daily and laws like the Privacy Protection Act of 1980.
But she never thought she would see such a case so close to home.
“You wouldn’t think this would happen here until it does,” Belmas told Courthouse News on Monday. “It’s bad.”
Police raided the offices of the Marion County Record in Kansas on Friday and searched the home of its owner and publisher.
The incident blew up into national news over the weekend, thrusting the paper and local authorities into a freedom-of-the press maelstrom.
“The first thing I thought of was ‘what happened to the First Amendment?’" said Joseph Russomanno, a professor of at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. "This strikes me as the type of action we would typically see in a nation where there is a nation with an authoritarian government where leaders are weak and insecure.”
Lyrissa Lidsky, professor of media law at the University of Florida, said the raid was "very alarming."
“On the surface, based on the facts that have been reported, it looks like an egregious abuse of power," she said.
And Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, said there's a reason why congress imposed great limits on the ability to search newsrooms.
“There is an enormous danger when police engage in searches of newsrooms in that it can harass and intimidate the media," he said.
Over the weekend and on Monday, several aspects of the case became clearer.
The searches appear to have been prompted by a complaint from a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, who accused the newspaper of invading her privacy after it obtained copies of her driving record, which included a 2008 drunken driving conviction.
Newspaper publisher and co-owner Eric Meyer maintains that the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and the background of Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody’s record drove the raids.
Police said they had probable cause to believe there were violations of Kansas law, including identity theft, according to a search warrant signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, the Associated Press reported.
Newell said she believed the newspaper, acting on a tip, violated the law to get her personal information to check the status of her driver's license following a 2008 conviction for drunk driving. Meyer said the Record decided not to write about it, but when Newell revealed at a subsequent city council meeting that she had driven while her license was suspended, that was reported, according to the Associated Press.
Adding to the tension on Saturday, Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old co-owner of the Record, died one day after her home was raided, CBS News reported. The newspaper said she had been "stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief.”
The Record is based in Marion, Kansas, about 55 miles northeast of Wichita. The city is the county seat of Marion County.
Cody defended the raid in a Saturday email to Courthouse News but would not go in depth.
“As much as I would like to give everyone details on a criminal investigation I cannot,” the chief’s email reads. “I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.”
Many experts who spoke to Courthouse News said the raid and search appeared to violate the Privacy Protection Act of 1980.
The law was passed in reaction to the Zurcher v. Stanford Daily case, in which the Supreme Court held that searches of newsrooms did not violate the First or Fourth Amendments. The case was the result of a 1971 police search of the student newspaper at Stanford University.
In response, Congress passed, and President Jimmy Carter signed, the 1980 Privacy Protection Act, which “prohibits the use of search warrants to obtain journalistic work products, including notes and documents, unless there is probable cause to believe the reporter or news organization is involved in criminal activity,” according to John Bender, a professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Additionally, Kansas journalists are also covered by a shield law.
In his defense, Cody cited the Act. “It is true that in most cases, it requires police to use subpoenas, rather than search warrants, to search the premises of journalists unless they themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search,” his statement reads.
Experts who saw the chief’s statement found it inadequate.
“It does not seem sufficient to answer the important constitutional questions raised by this incident,” said Lidsky. “If you are going to undertake an action that potentially interferes this significantly with Constitutional rights, you should be prepared to explain how that was justified, and so far they haven’t done so.”
If authorities violated the Privacy Protection Act, the remedy is civil, experts said.
Lidsky said law enforcement would claim immunity from the suit: “They’ll say they are immune but they probably aren’t immune.”
Belmas predicted it would be settled before even reaching court. But she couldn’t help but mention the death of Joan Meyer, the mother of co-publisher Eric Meyer.
Eric Meyer is listed as a trustee of the William Allen White fund, which is connected to the William Allen White School of Journalism, where Belmas is a professor.
“The damage is done. Mom is gone. All the computers are gone,” she said. ”There needs to be some repercussions for that and some damages paid. But damages are not going to bring back Mom.”
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