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.
> 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.
Wait, cops assaulting people without cause is not an official act? /s
It was filed with the application for the warrant. The judge wouldn’t have granted the warrant without one.
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.
What was the lie?
The wheels of justice turn slowly. And then stall and die.
