Portions of ‘serious’ raid suit dismissed
Staff writer
Despite dismissing some claims, a federal judge ruled Friday that former city council member Ruth Herbel’s allegations about last year’s police raids “give the court pause and raise serious constitutional concerns.”
Judge Holly L. Teeter even underlined the word “serious” in her ruling but at the same time noted, “as sometimes happens,” that only some of Herbel’s claims would go forward.
She ordered that Herbel’s allegations against Sheriff Jeff Soyez, former Marion mayor David Mayfield, and Marion County commissioners be dismissed.
Herbel’s claims against them may not be refiled. However, all remain as defendants in other suits filed by the newspaper and its current and former employees. Those cases are being handled by a different federal judge and involve different considerations.
Teeter’s ruling allows Herbel’s case to go forward with:
- Claims of First Amendment retaliation by former Marion police chief Gideon Cody
- Most claims by Herbel and her husband, Ron, of Fourth Amendment violations by Cody.
- Herbel’s claims that former deputy Steve Janzen, current deputy Aaron Christner, and Marion officer Zach Hudlin, now Marion’s interim police chief, exceeded the scope of a search warrant executed Aug. 11, 2023, at the Herbels’ home.
- Herbel’s claim of municipal liability against the City of Marion.
“In my opinion,” Herbel said after reviewing the ruling, “I believe those that are responsible for this should be held accountable. A precedent should be set so that law enforcement can’t continue to do illegal raids.”
Her attorneys with the Institute of Justice termed the ruling a first-round victory for Herbel.
“We were pleased to see the court agree that all of our claims and legal theories should go forward against Chief Cody and the City of Marion,” attorney Jared McClain said in a statement. “We’re still considering our next steps, but we’ll continue to fight to make sure that everyone involved is held accountable.”
Allegations of First Amendment retaliation against Janzen, Christner, and Hudlin were dismissed because they did not personally want to retaliate against Herbel, Teeter ruled.
Mayfield apparently did seek retaliation, Teeter ruled, but did not personally injure Herbel because he merely authorized Cody’s investigation and did not actively participate in it.
Attorneys for Cody had sought to dismiss the retaliation complaint against him on grounds of qualified immunity, claiming laws were not sufficiently clear and a magistrate judge had approved his warrant.
Teeter rejected these arguments but said they might be reasserted later in the case.
Teeter ruled that Hudlin, Mayfield, Soyez, and even Christner, who drafted most of the search warrant application, could not be liable for false statements or missing facts in the application because they did not personally make them and had relied on Magistrate Judge Laura Viar’s approval, despite the fact that Teeter termed the application she approved “dubious.”
Teeter suggested that the officers’ failure to investigate claims in the warrant might have been negligent but did not rise to the level of reckless disregard for truth necessary to support an allegation of First Amendment retaliation.
“Many of the facts known to Cody are at odds with representations in the warrant,” Teeter wrote. “The fact that a magistrate judge approved a warrant should not shield an officer who misrepresents or omits facts to that magistrate judge.”
At the same time, Teeter ruled, the warrant, though “not well-drafted,” was not overly broad.
She rejected a claim that Soyez was party to Cody’s decision to seize items without performing a required preliminary search because only Cody’s portion of a telephone conversation between the two regarding this point was documented in body camera recordings.
Allegations against Janzen, Christner, Hudlin, and Cody in this regard were allowed to go forward, however.
Teeter ruled that the city, not the county, was the final decision maker in conducting the raid and thus dismissed claims against the county but allowed them to stand against the city.
Newspaper attorney Bernie Rhodes said the ruling in Herbel’s case was likely to affect other cases “only vaguely.”
“Several times,” he noted, “Judge Teeter distinguishes Ruth’s case from ours. I’ve read the whole thing, and I’m not discouraged.”