'The jury made the right decision': Reporter Andrea Sahouri acquitted in trial stemming from arrest as she covered protest

William Morris
Des Moines Register

Andrea Sahouri says her acquittal Wednesday on two criminal charges sends an important message about recognizing the rights of journalists to do their jobs.

"The jury made the right decision," said Sahouri, a reporter for the Des Moines Register. "They made the decision to uphold democracy, a just democracy, the freedom of the press, First Amendment rights, the list goes on."

Sahouri was arrested while covering the George Floyd protests in May 2020, and charged with failure to disperse and interference with official acts, both simple misdemeanors. Police claimed she remained in the area of the May 31 protest in Des Moines despite orders to leave, and tried to pull away when a Des Moines police officer pepper-sprayed her and detained her.

After a three-day trial, the six-member jury returned a verdict Wednesday of not guilty on both charges. Sahouri's then-boyfriend, Spenser Robnett, was arrested with her and faced the same charges, and he also was acquitted on both counts.

Sahouri's arrest and the fact that the charges went to trial were widely criticized as an attack on press freedom. The three-day trial did not broadly discuss First Amendment issues, but Sahouri, a colleague who was with her and Register Executive Editor Carol Hunter all testified that Sahouri's presence in the protest area was the very core of what journalists do.

Press freedom groups praise verdict

After the verdict was announced, media and civil liberties groups praised the outcome. Amnesty International in a statement said the case is part of a growing trend of U.S. police forces "committing widespread and egregious human rights violations" in response to demonstrations.

Live updates:Last day of Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri's trial

“Journalists must be able to report on scenes of protest without fear of retribution. The right of the media to do their work is essential to the right of freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly," Amnesty researcher Denise Bell said. “Clearly, the jury saw these charges for what they are — completely ridiculous."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa denounced what it called an "outlandish prosecution" and called in a statement for reform at the Polk County Attorney's Office.

"The facts of [Sahouri's] arrest are appalling, but the fact that the state has pressed on in prosecuting her after these facts became apparent has been an embarrassment for Polk County and the State of Iowa, attracting national and international condemnation," Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said.

Sahouri released a statement after the verdict thanking her friends and family, colleagues and community for their support throughout the case. She also thanked her attorneys. In an interview, Sahouri said the charges and trial have been a heavy burden for the past 10 months.

"It’s really a tough feeling to go through this trial and have the state of Iowa trying to bring you down and trying to make you seem like you’re doing something wrong, when you’re really just doing your job," she said.

Before the trial, prosecutors had offered to drop the interference charge if Sahouri pleaded guilty to failure to disperse. She said it was important instead to take the case to trial and win a full acquittal.

"One, I did nothing wrong, regardless of if I’m a journalist or not, but two, I know I’m not going to be the last journalist arrested, by any means," Sahouri said. "This will continue. We’ve seen an upward trend of journalists being arrested just in the past year, in 2020, and it’s really important to stand by your convictions."

Key issue: Lack of body camera evidence

During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Sahouri and Robnett were near the scene of a confrontation at 6:30 p.m. May 31 in which officers used their squad car public address systems to tell demonstrators to disperse. Both testified that they did not hear the broadcast amid the tumult, and their attorneys argued the actual directives from police were ambiguous, telling protesters to clear the streets rather than to leave the area entirely.

The actual arrests happened an hour and a half later outside the Verizon store near Merle Hay Mall. Officer Luke Wilson was among a group of police who swept through the parking lot, dispersing a crowd that was throwing rocks and other objects, and encountered Sahouri as he rounded the building. At trial, he testified he sprayed pepper spray at a group of people to urge them along, and moved to arrest Sahouri  when she remained. Robnett, Wilson said, came back and tried to pull Sahouri away from him, leading him to hit both with additional pepper spray.

"I charged her with interference for trying to pull away from my grasp, as I charged Mr. Robnett when he tried to interfere with my custody," Wilson said.

A key issue in the trial was Wilson's body camera, which did not begin saving footage until 15 minutes after the arrest. Wilson testified he thought he had activated the camera in advance and did not realize he had not captured the encounter, although he noticed the camera was not responding as he expected. Although it is possible to recover unsaved video after the fact from Des Moines police body cameras, the missing recording was not discovered until after the camera memory had already overwritten the footage in question.

Defense attorneys presented footage taken by another officer on the scene who was a few steps behind Wilson in the parking lot. However, Wilson had rounded the corner and was out of sight from other officers for the critical few seconds leading up to Sahouri's arrest.

At the defense's request, Judge Lawrence McLellan instructed the jurors that, if they found the state had intentionally failed to preserve evidence, they might infer that the missing evidence would have been favorable to the defendants.

"When I look at the totality of the evidence, I believe there is substantial evidence that a jury could infer that there was intentional spoliation of evidence," McLellan said.

During closing arguments, Assistant Polk County Attorney Bradley Kinkade urged the jury to stay focused on the key elements of the charges: Were Sahouri and Robnett told to disperse, did they, and did they pull away from Officer Wilson?

"The job of the jury here is not to decide what the law should be. The job of the jury is not to like what happens," Kinkade said, adding that the jury was to limit itself to applying the "black-letter" law to the facts of the case.

"If you believe Officer Wilson went around that corner, tried to detain Ms. Sahouri and she tried to pull away, that in and of itself is interference with official acts," he said. "If you believe Officer Wilson that Mr. Robnett attempted to remove Ms. Sahouri from his custody, then you can check that box."

Defense attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt in his closing arguments pointed to a series of issues that he said raised reasonable doubts about the charges, including whether police clearly ordered those in the crowd to leave the protest and whether there was time for the actions described by Wilson to take place in the few seconds no camera had him in view.

After slightly less than two hours of deliberation, the jury delivered the not guilty verdicts. 

Verdict described as victory for First Amendment

Hunter and Gannett Media President/News Maribel Perez Wadsworth provided statements immediately after the verdict thanking the jury. Gannett is the parent company of the Register.

“Newsgathering is a fundamental part of press freedom. Reporters need to be at protests as the public’s eyes and ears, to conduct interviews, take photos and witness for themselves the actions of protesters and law enforcement," Hunter said. "If reporters are arrested and hauled away from protests, that denies people the right to know what’s going on in their community."

Perez Wadsworth described the verdict as a victory for the First Amendment as well as for Sahouri.

"It was clear Andrea was at that protest as a working journalist. It was clear that police were allowing other journalists to do exactly what Andrea was doing that day — reporting from a breaking news scene," Perez Wadsworth said. "Andrea was assaulted, arrested, charged and ultimately tried for doing her job." 

Gannett funded Sahouri’s defense and will always stand behind its journalists when they are arrested while simply performing their jobs, Perez Wadsworth said.

Recap:

A small group of demonstrators gathered Wednesday outside the Drake University Legal Clinic, where the trial was held, to support Sahouri, and broke into cheers when the verdict was announced. Indira Sheumaker, a local activist and Des Moines City Council candidate who also faces charges from the Floyd protests, said she was happy to hear the not-guilty verdict for both Sahouri and Robnett but said she's still angry the trial happened.

"The fact that she got a not guilty verdict doesn't undo that she was pepper-sprayed in the face and assaulted by an officer and she was arrested," Sheumaker said. "That can't be done, and that's the nature of the system, and it needs to be changed." 

Des Moines Police spokesman Sgt. Paul Parizek said in a statement the department appreciates the jury's work to resolve the case.

"Sufficient probable cause for the arrests existed, and that is how the case made it before a jury," Parizek said. "The jury made their decision based on the evidence presented to them, and we respect that decision."

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, who did not respond to the Register's request for comment on the verdict, claimed in a statement to the Washington Post that Sahouri was "part of the protests." Sahouri and others testified that she was on assignment at the protest and prosecutor Kinkade told the judge Wednesday that he had not intended to insinuate Sahouri was a participant in the protests.

Reporter George Shillcock contributed to this report. 

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.