Publishers Dispute Need for Search Warrant

Statements in L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley’s May 8 letter concerning the invasion of the Metropolitan News-Enterprise’s offices on May 2 are false. Jo-Ann Grace had agreed to send copies of our business records to a district attorney’s investigator relating to three legal advertisements we had published. The agreement was predicated on a subpoena being sent. We did not renege on our agreement because no subpoena was ever provided. Instead, a search warrant was served--something at which any newspaper would balk.

The statement that “Roger Grace refused to comply with the court order” is false. There was no court order to turn over documents. There was a search warrant, authorizing a search. No effort was made to block investigators from searching. Our staff was locked out for three hours while armed investigators set up camp in our offices. Our afternoon daily consequently got on the streets three hours late.

Cooley’s statement that “the newsroom at the Metropolitan News was not violated” is disingenuous. No part of the office had yet been searched by investigators at the time we turned over the documents. (We did so after learning from Cooley that he already knew the identity of the law firm that placed the notices, meaning our customer did not need protection of its identity.) Investigators spent the time going from room to room, diagraming what was where. We have a 30,000-square-foot spread, and investigators estimated a two- to three-day search.

The intent to search the newsroom was plain. Aside from an investigator’s stated intention to search the entire office, and a statement made by a deputy district attorney who was on a speaker phone with Cooley that drawers of reporters’ desks would be searched, the warrant itself, procured by Cooley’s office, evidences the intention. It says: “The search is to include all rooms ... files, [and] desks” and expressly mentions containers in the “editing” department.

Searches of newspaper offices can result in government investigators seeing unpublished material, including notes that reveal the identities of confidential news sources. That’s why Congress acted to prohibit such searches except under extremely narrow circumstances. It is “unlawful for a government officer or employee, in connection with the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense to search for or seize” materials “possessed by a person in connection with a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper....” The search warrant was invalid. Cooley exercised poor judgment in connection with his raid on our office.

Roger M. Grace

Jo-Ann W. Grace

Co-Publishers, Metropolitan

News-Enterprise, L.A.

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When the district attorney executed a search warrant at the Metropolitan News-Enterprise and shut down the paper’s newsroom, it was the public that suffered the most. An informed public depends on a free press. The press cannot operate under threat that government agents may routinely search reporters’ desks. If newsroom searches were permitted, sources would be reluctant to provide reporters with information for fear that the information, and potentially the sources’ identities, could end up in the government’s hands. Recognizing these dangers, Congress and the California Legislature passed laws to prohibit most newsroom search warrants.

Despite Cooley’s claims to the contrary, the Metropolitan News search warrant was far too broad and never should have been issued, let alone executed. It targeted not only the paper’s advertising offices but also editorial offices and even reporters’ desks, purses and wallets. The D.A. was not looking for a suspected killer, but for records regarding the publication of recall notices for South Gate elections. The press must be able to acquire and publish this information without being exposed to newsroom searches by government agents. By shutting down the newsroom, the D.A. has done harm to important constitutional values and to the public his office serves.

Thomas W. Newton

General Counsel, California

Newspaper Publishers Assn.

Sacramento