• by Ray Schultz , Yesterday

Another case involving police action against journalists was settled on Tuesday.  

Marion County, Kansas agreed to pay $3 million and apologize for a police raid on the Marion County Record in 2023.

The raid by the Marion Police was accompanied by a search of the home of the Record's editor Eric Meyer under the premise that reporters had illegally accessed the driving records.  

Also raided was the home of Ruth Herbel, a Marion County commissioner.

Joan Meyer, Meyer’s mother, died of a heart attack at age 98 the following day.  

“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," the Sheriff’s Office said in an apology, according to the Kansas Reflector. “This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants.”

Reporters’ computers and phones were seized under the belief that the journalists had illegally obtained a local restaurant owner’s driving records prior to writing about her, according to CNN.

The county will pay Eric Meyer $1.5 million and Herbel will get $650,000. In addition, reporter Deb Gruver will receive $250,000 and Phyllis Zorn will receive $600,000, the Reflector reports.    

Other civil cases are continuing.  

This battle is roughly contemporaneous with a California case in which reporter Mata Lau was referred for prosecution twice for reporting that a “Brady List” maintained by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department “catalogued roughly 300 deputies with histories of dishonesty or other misconduct," U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett wrote in denying a motion by the county to dismiss the case.