The Kansas magistrate who authorized last year’s police raid on the Marion County Record escaped discipline from a state panel by making claims that contradict statements in federal lawsuits about how the search warrants arrived in front of her and whether the police chief swore they were true before she signed them.
Magistrate Judge Laura Viar’s secret explanation, obtained by Kansas Reflector, adds a new layer of confusion and mystery to how law enforcement were able to carry out the search and seizure of journalists’ computers and cellphones without regard for state and federal laws that prohibit such action. It also raises concerns about the low standards set for judges by the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody prepared search warrant applications with the assistance of a sheriff’s deputy that accused newspaper reporter Phyllis Zorn of committing identity theft by looking up a driving record in a Kansas Department of Revenue public database. Cody said he emailed the search warrant applications to County Attorney Joel Ensey, whose office delivered them to the judge. Ensey said he printed the applications without reading them. A Topeka woman filed a complaint against Viar with the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct. A pending lawsuit questions whether the search warrants were legal if Cody never appeared before the judge. Viar said District Judge Susan Robson approached her with an unknown law enforcement officer on the morning of the raid. According to Viar, Robson introduced the officer as Cody and said she couldn’t sign the warrants “because of her history with the city.” Cody led the judges to believe that Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents were prepared to join the raid, even though they weren’t, Viar wrote. The disciplinary panel dismissed the complaint against Viar after receiving her response.
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