Charlotte judge declines to force ICE agents to save messages about arrests
A judge declined on Tuesday to force federal agents to save their messages about two protesters arrested in Charlotte late last year.
U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler said the issue was moot.
His decision came after Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Smith said in a different filing earlier this month that he already asked agents to preserve their messages, and that “no evidence has been deleted or destroyed.”
It’s the latest development in a case that has taken some unusual turns.
Federal agents arrested protesters Heather Morrow and William Stanley at the Department of Homeland Security office on Tyvola Centre Drive on Nov. 16, when Border Patrol agents arrested people over five days in the city in a wide-reaching operation.
Morrow at first faced a felony charge: assault, resist or impede a federal officer. The government claimed then that she grabbed an agent’s shoulders and tried to jump on his back.
But when her attorney published bystander video that did not show that, prosecutors dropped the charge.
Now, she and Stanley face three petty offenses and a misdemeanor.
Defense attorneys representing the two worried that agents might delete or not preserve messages about the arrests, writing in a motion that federal agents told a “remarkably consistent” but “false” story about what happened at the DHS office.
“The Court respectfully reminds the Government of its ongoing discovery obligations... The Government is further reminded that failure to disclose exculpatory evidence in a timely manner may result in the exclusion of evidence, dismissal of charges, contempt proceedings, disciplinary actions, or other sanctions, as may be appropriate,” Keesler cautioned in his order Tuesday.
He also had to order federal prosecutors to respond to the defense’s motion, he wrote.
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published January 21, 2026 at 5:00 AM.