ProPublica Partner Sues Mississippi County for Blocking Access to Search Warrants

By Caleb Bedillion, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in partnership with Propublica, May 22, 2023

The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal has sued the state's Union County, asking a judge to order that search warrants in its county-level justice court be made open for public inspection.

The lawsuit comes after an investigation in 2022 by the Daily Journal and ProPublica found that almost two-thirds of Mississippi’s justice courts obstruct access to search warrants and to the affidavits used by police to obtain them.

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

Law enforcement usually must get permission from a judge before searching someone’s 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.

Some Mississippi courts break statewide rules that require clerks to keep those warrants on file. Other courts — such as the Union County Justice Court — have the documents but claim the public can’t look at them.