A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a conservative group’s lawsuit over how prosecutors obtained the group’s electronic records during an investigation into possible election law violations during the Gov. Scott Walker campaign.
The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with U.S. District Judge William Conley that the prosecutors properly obtained a search warrant from the original John Doe II judge before obtaining the records from the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, Inc.’s internet service provider without notice to MacIver.
The records were obtained pursuant to the federal Stored Communications Act, and the act’s good-faith defense, as well as qualified immunity, protects the prosecutors from MacIver’s claims, Chief Judge Diane Wood wrote for a three-judge panel.