The judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the raid of a newspaper office in Marion, Kansas, is facing a complaint about her decision and has been asked by a judicial body to respond, records shared with CNN by the complainant show.
Few days old but I didn’t see this on search. It likely won’t go anywhere but I found the dig on the judge’s mental capacity to be hilarious.
The complaint requests the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct to review “Viar’s mental capacity in her decision to seemingly circumvent federal and state law” when she signed off on the search warrant for the newspaper office
I don’t know about going nowhere. The higher courts generally get pretty grumpy about lower courts going mask-off like this.
Nothing for them to quash at this point since the county attorney withdrew the warrant. I don’t really forsee her getting impeached or being declared without capacity and she has qualified immunity for civil damages. Hope she doesn’t get reelected.
Edit: unless she’s shown to have signed off without the affidavit. That could get her into trouble. I don’t think they can prove that though.
If the warrant was withdrawn, doesn’t that imply that the police who executed the withdrawn warrant were illegally searching and seizing?
The penalty for searching without a warrant is that evidence acquired is inadmissible. Sometimes. Sometimes not even that. Typically, that’s fucking it. So it doesn’t really matter that the search was illegal once the property is returned. Mostly, the penalties for the police are just political ones.
If there are some provable damages, the person who’s civil rights were damaged might be able to sue, though with qualified immunity even that is a very, very uphill battle. SCOTUS rules against plaintiffs in cases like that routinely because the SCOTUS is very, very pro-police. They routinely rule that making things harder for the police & prosecutors is too high a price to pay for protecting civil rights. See, for example, Van Buren vs US or Arizona v. Gant.
No. It means the prosecutors won’t be further pursuing the case. The warrant is legal process, returnable to the judge who signed it. If a party unilaterally wants to end a legal process it began, the procedure is to file a withdrawal.
> elect judges
This is the source of your problems.
I thought nobody could find the affidavit. Did that show up?
It finally did yeah. Seemed to have been filed a bit late. Chief of police wrote it himself. He’s also the one who assaulted one of the reporters personally, turns out. He’ll have no qualified immunity.
It was filed with the application for the warrant. The judge wouldn’t have granted the warrant without one.
“We finally were able to obtain the probable cause affidavit that was supposed to support the search warrant. It was filed three days after the searches were conducted, which is a little suspicious,” Meyer said in a CNN interview Wednesday.
Wait, cops assaulting people without cause is not an official act? /s
Nope it’s been public for a couple weeks.
Good. The whole point of judicial review is to not be a rubber stamp and to protect the rights of accused. They failed in both ways here.
Rubber stamping search warrants is how it’s done though. If every case becomes high profile then things might change but I have no faith.
High profile stories like these at least send a warning to other judges that they take a risk when they blanket approve things without due diligence.
I’d hope this is a sign for things to change, but I don’t know how likely.
She should be facing impeachment ad disbarment.
She should be facing murder charges.
Doing the stupid, then lying about it when they get caught, seems to be the way big fish in small ponds operate.
The town’s civic leadership is going to look vastly different a year from now.
I wouldn’t bet on that. Apathy and inertia are hard things to overcome.
What was the lie?
Maybe try reading about the case.
I’ve read more than you about it, I’m sure. But if you can’t back up the claim…
That’s funny because you said the exact opposite to me just one minute prior to leaving this comment.
The exact opposite?
I said I’ve read more about this than you.
I also said I had not read that singular detail.
Not very good at logic are ya?
Logic dictates that it’s impossible for you to know what I have or haven’t read about the case. You stated that I provided you with details about the case that you hadn’t read yet, further disproving your unprovable claim.
You also asked what was a lie, and I provided you with one (of many) examples from the case.
Anything else?
If you didn’t go to law school, you have not read more about this than me.
Not sure what lie you pointed out.
Just one?
The wheels of justice turn slowly. And then stall and die.