Sherman Smith

The August 11 raid was ostensibly undertaken under the pretense that a reporter committed identity theft by accessing public records on a public website. A new lawsuit from veteran journalist Deb Gruver contends that the Marion Police Chief's real motivation was to punish the newspaper for its investigations.

The lawyer who represents the Marion County Record accused Marion County Police of copying data from the newspaper onto an external hard drive and failing to give it back. The sheriff's office agreed Thursday to destroy the data.

Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody initiated the Aug. 11 raid of the newspaper office, the publisher’s home, and the home of a city councilwoman under the pretense that a reporter committed identity theft by looking at public records. First Amendment attorneys say the reporter committed no crime and Magistrate Judge Laura Viar should have known the search warrants were unconstitutional when she signed them.

Officers also raided the home of Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer, who lived with his 98-year-old mother, Joan, The newspaper reported that Joan Meyer, “stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief,” collapsed and died.

The publisher of the newspaper said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper. The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting with a member of Congress, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s conviction for drunken driving.

A Kansas Senate committee has tabled debate on a bill that would implement a medical marijuana program in 2025. That means the legislation is unlikely to advance before state lawmakers finish their work in early April, leaving advocates and patients upset.

A 2021 Kansas law makes it a crime to engage in conduct that would cause someone to believe you are an election worker. In response, multiple nonprofits like the League of Women Voters suspended or limited efforts to educate and assist prospective voters.

Sarah Gonzales-McLinn killed Hal Sasko in 2014. Her appeal for clemency from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly highlights grooming, bondage, pornography and undisclosed evidence.

About 65% of Dodge City’s residents are Latino. But a coalition of voting rights groups argues that an "at-large" election system allows the city’s white voting bloc to prevent the Latino population from electing candidates. No Latino candidate has been elected to the commission this century.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree denied a request by six Kansans to intervene in the upcoming election. Crabtree said the plaintiffs, who claimed the devices were vulnerable to Chinese communists, were “long on suspicion, contingency and hypothesis, but short on facts.”