{"id":1062355,"date":"2023-05-22T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/daily-journal-sues-union-county-mississippi-blocking-search-warrant-access"},"modified":"2023-05-22T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T10:00:00","slug":"propublica-partner-sues-mississippi-county-for-blocking-access-to-search-warrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/05\/22\/propublica-partner-sues-mississippi-county-for-blocking-access-to-search-warrants\/","title":{"rendered":"ProPublica Partner Sues Mississippi County for Blocking Access to Search Warrants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n by Caleb Bedillion<\/span>, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal<\/a> <\/p>\n \n\n \n

This article was produced for ProPublica\u2019s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal<\/a>. Sign up for Dispatches<\/a> to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n\n \n

The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal has sued Mississippi\u2019s Union County, asking a judge to order that search warrants in its county-level justice court be made open for public inspection.<\/p>\n\n

The lawsuit comes after an investigation last year by the Daily Journal and ProPublica found that almost two-thirds of Mississippi\u2019s justice courts obstruct access to search warrants<\/a> and to the affidavits used by police to obtain them.<\/p>\n\n

That thwarts public scrutiny of searches, including no-knock raids in which police sometimes enter people\u2019s homes at night with guns drawn. Last year, two Mississippi counties settled lawsuits involving such raids in which police shot people, one fatally.<\/p>\n\n

Law enforcement usually must get permission from a judge before searching someone\u2019s property, and normally they must knock and announce themselves before entering. But they can ask a judge for a no-knock warrant if they provide specific reasons.<\/p>\n\n

They must bring search warrants<\/a> back to court after a search, along with a list of what they seized.<\/p>\n\n

The news organizations found that some Mississippi courts break statewide rules that require clerks to keep those warrants on file. Other courts \u2014 such as the Union County Justice Court \u2014 have the documents but claim the public can\u2019t look at them.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cOur goal is to ensure that judicial records are kept open and that the government at all levels does its work where the public can see it,\u201d Daily Journal Executive Editor Sam Hall said. \u201cIt seems clear to us \u2014 and to many other courts across the country \u2014 that the records we\u2019ve requested should be public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized a centuries-old norm that court proceedings and papers should be open to the public. Judges can order that certain documents be sealed, but that must be done on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n\n

Federal appeals courts have agreed that search warrants are judicial records that should be open to inspection, though they disagree about when exactly the document becomes subject to access.<\/p>\n\n

It is \u201chighly unusual\u201d for a court to claim \u201cthat search warrants and related materials are simply never accessible to the public,\u201d Katie Townsend, deputy executive director and legal director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told the news organizations last year.<\/p>\n\n

But many of Mississippi\u2019s justice courts, which frequently handle search warrants, did just that.<\/p>\n\n

An attorney acting on behalf of Union County told the Daily Journal<\/a> that records of executed search warrants on file with the clerk of the Union County Justice Court are shielded from public view because of a state law that protects the investigative records of law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n\n

In its lawsuit<\/a>, the Daily Journal argues that this claim runs afoul of Mississippi\u2019s Public Records Act and the common-law right to access court records. Mississippi\u2019s public records law does contain an exemption for certain investigative records, but the exemption applies only to law enforcement agencies, not courts.<\/p>\n\n

The county later offered<\/a> to make some search warrants available, but only if a criminal investigation had concluded and a judge gave permission. The Daily Journal\u2019s lawsuit argues that these conditions aren\u2019t supported by law.<\/p>\n\n

A representative of Union County did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n

Experts say it\u2019s not easy to get access to search warrants in many courthouses across the country. Even so, they said the problems with record-keeping and public access in Mississippi\u2019s justice courts were extreme.<\/p>\n\n

After a search warrant has been executed, it \u201cshould be a part of the files and available for public inspection,\u201d William Waller Jr., a retired chief justice of Mississippi\u2019s Supreme Court, told the news organizations last year. He helped draft the state\u2019s rules of criminal procedure.<\/p>\n\n

In response to the Daily Journal and ProPublica\u2019s investigation, Mississippi\u2019s judicial training body has advised court clerks and judges at training sessions that executed search warrants must be kept on file by the clerk and that the documents should be considered public if a judge hasn\u2019t sealed them.<\/p>\n\n

Last month, an insurance program run by many Mississippi counties held a risk management conference<\/a> for law enforcement agencies, featuring sessions on search warrants and no-knock raids. Lawyers warned sheriffs that deputies should carefully document their reasons for conducting no-knock searches.<\/p>\n\n

Rural Monroe County, in Mississippi\u2019s northeast corner, settled a lawsuit for $690,000<\/a> last year over a 2015 fatal shooting by sheriff\u2019s deputies during a 1 a.m. raid to look for drugs. Ricky Keeton came to the door with an air pistol as deputies pried open his door. His girlfriend said he thought someone was breaking in.<\/p>\n\n

Also last year, Coahoma County, in the Mississippi Delta, settled a lawsuit that involved a 2020 raid in which sheriff\u2019s deputies shot an unarmed man multiple times. He wasn\u2019t even the target of the search and only happened to be at the house at the time of the raid. The amount of the settlement has not been disclosed.<\/p>\n \n \n

This post was originally published on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Caleb Bedillion, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal <\/p>\n

This article was produced for ProPublica\u2019s Local Reporting Network…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24266,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4134],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24266"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062356,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062355\/revisions\/1062356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}