Back to Law & the Media home page
Back to FOI home page

Freedom of Information

Newsroom Searches

On April 9, 1971, protesting students of Stanford University took control of the Stanford University Hospital administrative offices and an adjoining corridor. Nine policemen were injured when they tried to break through a student barricade.

Two days later, The Stanford Daily ran photographs of the incident. As a result a warrant was issued from municipal court to search the offices of the newspaper for photographs and negatives for the incident. The search occurred and no photographs were found.

The newspaper sued Palo Alto Police Chief James Zurcher, the district attorney and the officers who conducted the search, claiming infringement of the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment guarantees.

A federal district court held that the search was illegal. An appeals court concurred in 1976. However, in 1978 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled by a 5 to 3 decision that “newspapers may be subject of unannounced searches as long as those searches are approved beforehand by a court’s issuance of a search warrant.”

Zurcher v. The Stanford Daily, 98 S.Ct. 1970 (1978).

A federal law that went into effect in 1981 limits the circumstances in which surprise searches may be conducted on newsrooms. The law requires government officials to use subpoenas first and requires guidelines for limiting searches thereafter.

Since 1979 Texas has had a law relating to newsroom searches. The law was added to the Code of Criminal Procedure under “Search Warrants” (Art. 18.01). The law primarily adds to the basic approach to search warrants the stipulation that “a judge of a statutory conduct court, district court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, or the Supreme Court may issue warrants.” Another section of the same law requires that the search warrant state specifically what is being sought in a newsroom search.

Since 1979 Texas has had a law relating to newsrooms searches. The law was added to the Code of Criminal Procedure under “Search Warrants” (Art. 18.01). The law primarily adds to the basic approach to search warrants the stipulation that “a judge of a statutory county court, district court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, or the Supreme Court may issue warrants.” Another section of the same law requires that the search warrant state specifically what is being sought in a newsroom search.