A San Francisco judge ruled Thursday that she should never have issued a search warrant for a journalist's phone records earlier this year and that police must unseal most of the affidavit filed to support the warrant.
San Francisco police requested the warrant as part of an investigation into who leaked to reporter Bryan Carmody a police report on the death of public defender Jeff Adachi. The police report revealed Adachi was at a friend's apartment with a woman who was not his wife and that officers found empty bottles of alcohol and marijuana gummies. Carmody sold the police report, along with footage he shot of the apartment, to several news outlets.
This warrant is one of five issued in connection to the investigation of the leaked police report. Two of those warrants led to the highly publicized raids of Carmody's home and office in May. Identical motions for the remaining four warrants are still making their way through the courts and have hearings scheduled for later this summer.
First Amendment attorneys have argued that the warrant violated California's shield law, which protects journalists from revealing confidential sources.
Judge Rochelle East ruled the warrant was improper because Carmody is a journalist. She said police did not tell her he was a journalist when requesting the warrant. An attorney representing Carmody said she should have known that information.
"I think it is very disturbing that she didn't," said Tom Burke, Carmody's attorney, who also represents KQED in other cases. "I have confidence in the judiciary. I don't think that they do these sorts of things. But they can only ... act on whatever information that they have, and if they're not told the information how are they supposed to know?"
