The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended, the mayor confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday.
Marion Mayor Dave Mayfield in a text said he suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He declined to discuss his decision further and did not say whether Cody was still being paid.
Voice messages and emails from the AP seeking comment from Cody’s lawyers were not immediately returned Saturday.
The Aug. 11 searches of the Marion County Record’s office and the homes of its publisher and a City Council member have been sharply criticized, putting Marion at the center of a debate over the press protections offered by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
He’s apparently a slow learner:
Full story
I’m not sure either, can you lay it out in a few sentences or a short paragraph?
Are you asking in good faith? It doesn’t seem like it.
Thr article and the ones linked about the warrant lay it all out.
Nailed it.
Unfortunately, some would rather argue and waste others’ time. See below for details.
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Good faith. I don’t get the outrage here.
The article above lays out nothing about the law. Just a throwaway sentence with a link to a prior story, that quoted two legal experts who disagreed about what law the search and seizure violated.
There’s a vague allusion to potential federal criminal civil rights charges, as well as civil liability.
That’s true if the police did something wrong. I just can’t seem to pinpoint what it is the police are alleged to have done wrong here.
What statute, what recognized constitutional right?
The judge’s ruling goes against the First and Fourth Amendments (free speech, illegal search and seizure), and established case law regarding these amendments.
You don’t have to cite the cases, but what case law?
There’s no special Fourth Amendment right for journalists. The Fourth Protects warrantless search and seizure. The police here had a warrant. If the warrant affidavit didn’t support the probable cause, how? The crime alleged seems clear to me.
You can find that yourself.
Read closely, I never wrote that.
Which shouldn’t have been issued; the judge erred, and the prosecutor dropped charges against the newspaper.
Just because the judge approved it doesn’t make it legal.
The police chief may have misrepresented the reasons for the warrant; the pending lawsuit(s) should resolve this.
If you think the judge and police chief are in the right here, fine; you have a right to your opinion.
You have no argument then?
There is no First Amendment case law that allows journalists to commit crimes.
I don’t think they are in the right, or in the wrong. I don’t know enough about it because nobody seems to be able to explain it.
I know “the police chief(?) may have misrepresented” blah blah blah, isn’t a reason. The police chief did not write the warrant application. What fact in the warrant was misrepresented?
And here we go again. I never said there was, so stop the straw man bullshit.