Rejecting dismissal motions by the city and county, a federal judge ruled Friday that the Record had established “plausible inference of a conspiracy” in its lawsuit against current and former officials regarding raids Aug. 11, 2023, on its newsroom and two residences.

“As alleged here,” Judge Daniel D. Crabtree wrote, “defendants manufactured probable cause to procure search warrants, used those search warrants to raid the newspaper’s place of operations, and plainly violated the terms of the search warrant to seize the newspaper’s every computer, effectively shutting it down.”

He termed the allegations “astonishing.”

“Any reasonable official in the defendant’s shoes would know that this conduct is unlawful,” he wrote, later adding: “The court easily concludes that plaintiffs have alleged a violation for First Amendment freedom of press.”

Record attorney Bernie Rhodes termed Crabtree’s ruling a clear victory for the Record.

“When the judge wrote that the allegations against the various city and county officials were ‘astonishing,’” Rhodes said, “he agreed with every other person in America who has heard about what happened that day in Marion, Kansas. This cannot happen again anywhere in this country.”

Allegations against all seven defendants being sued by the Record were allowed to stand even if some individual defendants were removed from specific counts.

Direct allegations against former Marion mayor David Mayfield, for example, were dropped, but Crabtree warned in his 230 pages of rulings that “imputed liability through the conspiracy remains.”

Any dismissals he granted were without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled as additional information becomes available, but only if refiled within 20 days.

If information presented so far is supported at trial, Crabtree wrote, the raids appear to have violated Fourth Amendment search and seizure protections, as well.

“Stripped of the allegedly false statements, the search warrant applications contain almost no information suggesting that criminal activity was afoot,” the judge wrote of the raids, presided over by Gideon Cody, Marion’s police chief at the time. “The thrust of Cody’s position presumes — without justification — that the act of downloading publicly available documents is illegal.”

The judge wrote that arguments that the Record and its staff committed identity theft were “even weaker.” And he didn’t stop at Cody potentially bearing responsibility.

Crabtree ruled against county motions seeking qualified immunity for Sheriff Jeff Soyez and sheriff’s investigator Aaron Christner from most allegations of Fourth Amendment violations.

“The [plaintiff’s] amended complaint alleges — with specificity — that Christner knowingly or recklessly drafted the search warrant affidavit to include false statements and omit material information,” Crabtree wrote. “And then Cody signed his name to it, allegedly adding more false statements in his warrant application.”

Christner’s refusal to sign warrant applications afterward, Crabtree wrote, could be interpreted as “consciousness of guilt” in which he “intentionally distanced himself from wrongful conduct.”

The judge rejected Soyez’s claim of qualified immunity, saying Soyez’s role in recommending that the home of Record co-owners Eric and Joan Meyer be added to the list of raid targets indicated involvement even though “officers have a duty not to seek a warrant where not even arguable probable cause supports it.”

Marion officer Zach Hudlin was relieved of some — but not all — responsibility.

Hudlin may not have known that his review of the warrant application would lead to a violation of constitutional rights, Crabtree wrote. However, he warned that this could change after additional evidence is obtained. He also allowed to stand Fourth Amendment allegations against Hudlin for allegedly exceeding the scope of the warrants.

Crabtree’s ruling opens the way for discovery of additional evidence and for the questioning under oath of those involved. That process had been stalled at the city and county’s request pending Crabtree’s ruling on various motions to dismiss elements of four different cases filed after the raid.

In his ruling, the judge wrote that officers “grossly exceeded” terms of the search warrant by seizing devices without conducting required preview searches. He rejected defendants’ claims that taking an hour to conduct a preview search was unmanageable.

The judge also rejected defendants’ arguments that the plaintiff’s complaints were too long and contained too many images. At the same time, he rejected plaintiffs’ arguments that the city and county had failed to train its officers adequately. However, he allowed to stand allegations that officers violated the Federal Privacy Protection Act by raiding the Record rather than using a subpoena to obtain documents investigators sought.

Denial of plaintiffs’ arguments about failure to train officers adequately was not that plaintiffs were wrong but that the issues involved were so basic special training shouldn’t have been needed.

“A plaintiff can’t state a cognizable failure-to-train claim against a municipality when the situation’s proper response is obvious to all without training,” Crabtree wrote. “The allegations in the amended complaint — retaliating against the press for political revenge — are so manifestly wrong that the city’s failure to provide direct training on it doesn’t raise an inference of deliberate indifference.”

Crabtree simultaneously ruled in four cases. The main case was brought by the Record, owner Eric Meyer, and the estate of his mother, Joan Meyer, who died of stress-induced sudden cardiac failure a day after the raids.

In a case brought by Record reporter Phyllis Zorn, Mayfield and the county were dropped as defendants; some Fourth Amendment allegations against Soyez, Hudlin, and Christner were dropped; some claims about seizing Zorn’s office computer were dropped because she didn’t own it; and Hudlin and Christner were dropped as conspirators but remain as defendants in other allegations.

In a case brought by Record office manager Cheri Bentz, First Amendment and Privacy Protection Act claims were dropped because she does not qualify as a journalist. All claims against Soyez, Mayfield, Hudlin, and the county were dropped, and conspiracy claims were dropped, but allegations against Christner were allowed to remain.

The entire remnants of a case brought by former reporter Deb Gruver were dropped after she earlier agreed to a settlement with Cody.

As with Record attorney Rhodes, lawyers for the Zorn and Bentz termed Friday’s rulings a clear victory for the plaintiffs.

The Record and Zorn continue to have cases against both the city and the county, which would be liable if any of their current or former employees are ruled to have violated plaintiffs’ rights