Ex-Kansas police chief who raided local newspaper criminally charged

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/13/marion-county-police-newspaper-raid-charges

by howard941 • 2 years ago

469 77 2 years ago

Kansas police chief who led the raid on the Marion County Record has resigned - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37757664 - Oct 2023 (8 comments)

Police chief who led raid of Marion County Record has been suspended - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37722438 - Oct 2023 (48 comments)

Marion County atty withdraws search warrant against Kansas paper, returns items - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37151697 - Aug 2023 (37 comments)

Police raid of a Kansas newsroom raises alarms about violations of press freedom - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37120350 - Aug 2023 (146 comments)

Small Kansas newspaper says co-owner, 98, collapsed and died after police raid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37120188 - Aug 2023 (43 comments)

Co-owner of Kansas newspaper dies after police raid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37114892 - Aug 2023 (4 comments)

Illegal raids contribute to death of newspaper co-owner - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37105764 - Aug 2023 (103 comments)

A conversation with a newspaper owner raided by cops - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37102271 - Aug 2023 (118 comments)

Police stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37096015 - Aug 2023 (138 comments)

macintux• 2 years ago

I hope that’s not the last charge levied. A police raid designed to retaliate against journalists for being journalists should result in more than one tangential prosecution.

toomuchtodo2• 2 years ago

There was also a settlement, although civil litigation continues.

A former reporter for a weekly Kansas newspaper has agreed to accept $235,000 to settle part of her federal lawsuit over a police raid on the paper that made a small community the focus of a national debate over press freedoms.
The settlement removed the former police chief in Marion from the lawsuit filed by former Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver, but it doesn't apply to two other officials she sued over the raid: the Marion County sheriff and the county's prosecutor. Gruver's lawsuit is among five federal lawsuits filed over the raid against the city, the county and eight current or former elected officials or law enforcement officers.
Gruver's attorney did not immediately respond to emails Friday seeking comment. An attorney for the city, its insurance company, the former chief and others declined to comment but released a copy of the June 25 settlement agreement after the Record filed an open records request. He also provided a copy to The Associated Press.

https://apnews.com/article/kansas-newspaper-raid-lawsuit-b0b...

givemeethekeys• 2 years ago

Does the defense pay for all the legal expenses incurred in addition to the settled amount? Lawsuits ain't cheap.

batch12• 2 years ago

He also provided a copy to The Associated Press.

Interesting way to reduce the value of the info and effort for the request. Send a copy to the paper's competition first/too

starik36• 2 years ago

Civil litigation basically means that the taxpayers are on the hook for any damages. I am betting if there were to be personal responsibility, these types are acts would be history.

phone8675309• 2 years ago

If they're going to push to arrest peaceful marijuana users and ruin their lives with a drug charge then the people involved in this raid should see the inside of a cell at least as long as someone up on possession because what the raid plotters have done is more corrosive to a free society than anyone smoking weed at a concert.

tantalor• 2 years ago

Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.

https://www.justice.gov/crt/deprivation-rights-under-color-l...

mikeweiss• 2 years ago

Never heard of this law before... Thanks!

joe_the_user• 2 years ago

This is essentially the Federal Government biggest single gun against local corruption - as I recall, it's what officers who beat Rodney King were eventually prosecuted under.

qingcharles4• 2 years ago

I didn't realize that statute applied to non-violent violations, thank you.

jmyeet• 2 years ago

I'm honestly surprised this has led to charges. I eagerly await the qualified immunity argument against this.

Before we get too excited, there's lots of ways this can go wrong. People don't understand just how rigged the justice system is not to prosecute authority figures including the police. For example:

1. Manu jurisdictions require felony charges to first be approved by a grand jury. This is meant to protect citizens from spurious felony charges. The grand jury proces empanels a group of people, just like a jury, but they'll only hear evidence that the prosecutor presents. There is no defense counsel. The defendant is not present. Anyone interesting in pursuing a prosecution is not present.

So what can go wrong? A prosecutor can intentionally bring a weak case and then hang their hat on the grand jury denying to pursue charges. It happens all the time.

Why would a prosecutor do this? Because they rely on the police for prosecutions. If a prosecutor gets a reputation for locking up the police then their police witnesses start getting sick and missing court dates. And that prosecutor's conviction rate goes down, which ultimately is the only thing they care about.

2. Judges often either have a prosecution bias or they outright work for the benefit of the prosecution. There can be multiple reasons for this. Many judges are former prosecutors. Depending on your state, judges may be politicians effectively as they have to campaign for their position or their name is on the ballot to extend their term so narratives like "tough on crime" start appearing.

There are three big recent examples of this:

1. The YSL trial in Georgia. The judge had ex-parte meetings with witnesses and the prosecution with no defense cousel present during which a witness was coerced to testify for the prosecution by the judge. That judge was ultimately forced to recuse themselves because thsi was such an egregious breach of the rules;

2. The Karen Reed trial in Massachussetts. This wasn't on the news much but was covered heavily on social media, particularly Tiktok. The list of sins by the prosecutors and judges are really too great to enumerate.

3. Alec Baldwin's trial for the death of a crew member on the set of Rust. The prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. They hid bullets in a file of another case so the defense would never see it. This led to the case being dismissed with prejudice, rightly so. This is what's called a Brady violation [1]. Now because that was a high-profile case that happened. But sometimes the Brady violation is ignored. In a famous Supreme Court case (Connick v. Thomson [2]), the Supreme Court ruled that if just one prosecutor in an office does a Brady violation then it's fine. It's not a systemic problem. Crazy.

Now we have had high profile cases where the police have been successfuly prosecuted, most notably Derek Chauvin. But those really are the exception. We're a long way from a conviction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_disclosure

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connick_v._Thompson

richbell• 2 years ago

It seems that people think you're hoping for this to be overturned, whereas I believe you're saying that you anticipate it could be given precedent.

nolamark2• 2 years ago

My understanding is that there were no changes for the actual raid, but "with felony interference in the judicial process" due to actions taken after the raid.

"In Monday’s report, prosecutors highlight a section of state statutes indicating that charges against Cody might be related to statements made by former Marion restaurant owner Kari Newell that Cody urged her to destroy evidence of text messages the two had exchanged."

http://marionrecord.com. Paper cleared; ex-chief faces felony charge

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/08/13/former-marion-police-...

A conviction would likely only result in probation for a low level felony he is no longer in a position to repeat offend in.

https://www.kansas.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dion-lefler... "We can safely assume the video recording is accidental for two reasons: 1) At the start of the conversation, Cody warns Newell, “We can’t write anything” to each other and she replies “Yeah, I know, I understand.” And 2) Immediately after he hangs up, Cody video-recorded himself taking a leak in the men’s room at a Casey’s General Store."

https://www.kake.com/features/special-content/untold-story-k... "The day after we completed this interview, Newell revealed the chief had asked her to delete text messages between them after rumors began that they were romantically involved. She says there's no truth to those rumors, but she deleted the texts anyway - then immediately regretted it."

qingcharles4• 2 years ago

It's hard to criminally charge someone for non-violently violating someone's constitutional rights.

You can, perhaps, use an "Official Misconduct" statute as the basis for the charge, but I've not heard of it done.

There are federal criminal statutes for violently violating someone's constitutional rights under the US constitution.

Edit: I'm probably wrong:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241327

cvoss• 2 years ago

There's a lot of unfounded speculation here. But I'll just address the one set of claims that have cited documentation, which turn out to be unfounded upon examination of the citations.

In a famous Supreme Court case (Connick v. Thomson [sic]), the Supreme Court ruled that if just one prosecutor in an office does a Brady violation then it's fine.

The first paragraph of that decision [0] contradicts the claim. Thompson had two convictions against him overturned because of a single Brady violation. The Brady violation was not fine, and the court system recognized that. After all, Brady itself is a SCOTUS decision that holds that the eponymous action by the prosecution is unconstitutional under Due Process. Thompson received his due process upon review.

On a topic unrelated to the constitutional question of the Brady violation, Connick v. Thompson asked whether Thompson was due civil damages because of a systematic failure of the DA's office to train its prosecutors, which he failed to show.

[0] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/563/51/

sbuttgereit• 2 years ago

I eagerly await the qualified immunity argument against this.

As I understand it, there won't be any qualified immunity arguments made against these charges... qualified immunity is about civil lawsuits, not criminal charges.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/qualified_immunity

qingcharles4• 2 years ago

Correct, police have no statutory immunity from criminal prosecution, except where a statute explicitly states it (a few statutes say "Except when committed by a peace officer in his lawful duties" etc).

OTOH, judges are mostly ex-prosecutors, and if I were this cop I would take a bench trial and gamble on the judge acquitting me regardless of the evidence. As one judge said to me, on the record, "police officers are allowed to commit crimes to gather evidence."

guywithahat2• 2 years ago

You wrote 10 paragraphs from just reading the title?

The only charge was because an officer asked someone to delete texts, it has nothing to do with the raid itself

aussieguy1234• 2 years ago

meanwhile in Australia, journalists get raided and nothing happens https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/17/federal-police...

throwaway484763• 2 years ago

Or get their house firebombed.

BigJono• 2 years ago

Or get the anti-terror squad put on them for asking a politician a question in the street.

DiscourseFan• 2 years ago

God bless America

bb88• 2 years ago

Go Kansas!

exabrial• 2 years ago

Make every prosecutor, ag, judge, and lawyer involved go to jail. A bunch of law school white collar imbeciles are going to wash their hands clean of this despite their participation.

I’m from Sedgwick county, nearby.

guywithahat2• 2 years ago

The only charge was against the officer for asking someone to delete texts, none of the charges were because of the raid itself

Brett_Riverboat3• 2 years ago

I have always felt that any officer of the law charged with breaking the law should face a mandatory doubling of their sentence. They "know the law" and therefore have no excuse. The fact that only one person is being charged despite several others participating in this is just yet one more miscarriage of justice.

Beijinger2• 2 years ago

"They know the law"

No, they don't. They are police officers, not lawyers. Exactly this causes many problems when, sorry to speak this way, testosterone meets incompetence in law enforcement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiUkbE_ktHs

runako• 2 years ago

Replace with "should know the law" or "have a duty to know the law" or "know the law better than civilians."

Brett_Riverboat3• 2 years ago

I know they don't thats why its in quotes.

chipdart2• 2 years ago

No, they don't. They are police officers, not lawyers.

How do you enforce laws that you don't know or understand?

Think about it. These guys mobilize themselves to use force to achieve their goal. How is step 0 of this whole process not "check if what we are about to do complies with the law"?

If they mobilize themselves to use force to achieve a goal through illegal and criminal means, they are not different than organized crime.

nolamark2• 2 years ago

The officers were specifically NOT charged for the raid because of their ignorance and incompetence

https://kansasreflector.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Speci... See pages 99 onward

“But the special prosecutors also concluded that police — despite their misunderstanding of evidence, a rushed investigation, and faulty and unlawful search warrants — didn’t commit any crimes by investigating a baseless suspicion of identity theft or carrying out the raid.“ https://kansasreflector.com/2024/08/05/special-prosecutors-p...

The changes against the chief are for asking a witness to delete text messages after the raid

alsetmusic• 2 years ago

It's funny how ignorance of the law isn't a valid excuse for me but it is for them.

waihtis• 2 years ago

This is true for almost anything. 99.9% of the people out there know, for example, that killing another person is illegal. Your logic makes no sense here

hungie• 2 years ago

They are saying police should be held to the highest standards, as enforcers of the law. The punishment for an enforcer should be higher than a punishment for a lay person.

searealist• 2 years ago

How convenient, your political enemies should be subject to twice all legal penalties.

Ex-Kansas police chief who raided local newspaper criminally charged

Related Stories