The Nevada Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a District Court judge wrongly denied a motion to dismiss filed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal after the news organization was sued for publishing images of Henderson corrections officers.
The litigation stems from a 2023 investigative story in which the Review-Journal reported that Henderson jail officers received $5 million in overtime over a three-year period but made mistakes like breaking use-of-force rules and not properly searching inmates for drugs.
In its newspaper and on its website, the Review-Journal published exclusive still images and video of corrections officers in jail surveillance footage that was provided by a source, not the Henderson Police Department. The Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers’ union responded with a lawsuit asserting the Review-Journal violated a law that says images of officers possessed by a law enforcement agency are confidential.
The Review-Journal argued that the statute forbids law enforcement agencies from publishing images of officers — not media outlets. A judge ruled that the Review-Journal did not have to unpublish or alter the footage to hide the faces of officers.
The newspaper then filed an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss, which District Judge Mark Denton denied. The Review-Journal appealed.
“Errors in the district court’s analysis warrant reversal,” a three-justice panel of the Supreme Court ruled.
SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation. In a previous case involving Steve Wynn, the Supreme Court ruled that Nevada’s anti-SLAPP laws were designed to limit claims against “a news organization publishing an article in a good faith effort to inform their readers regarding an issue of clear public interest.”
Denton made a mistake by finding that the complaint in the suit “did not assert a claim ‘within the intendment of’ Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statutes,” the court said in the Wednesday order.
Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook applauded the Supreme Court’s decision.
“This lawsuit is an attack on the First Amendment rights of a free press,” Cook said Wednesday. “The union has brought a textbook SLAPP claim, and the Review-Journal’s motion to dismiss warranted more thoughtful consideration. Public employees can’t tell us what we can and can’t publish.”
William Schuller, an attorney representing the union, said he sees the order as the court saying Denton didn’t go far enough in his analysis.
That just means Denton needs to rehear the motion and conduct a fuller evaluation, he said. He does not anticipate the judge will dismiss the case.
“It doesn’t mean that they win because of this order,” he said, referring to the Review-Journal.
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.
