KSHB Lawyer Joins Demand For Texts & Emails Of Former Kansas Top Cop

Follow-up on this controversy that dominated the metro discourse and garnered national coverage this year.

Check the legal debate that still endures . . .

Jennifer Hill, an attorney hired to represent the city of Marion following the raids, denied the KSHB 41 I-Team’s request for Cody’s text messages and emails.

In Hill’s Oct. 30 denial, Hill writes, “As it relates to personal emails and text messages, the City has no custody over personal cell phones and KORA provides no enforcement mechanism to obtain text messages from personal cell phones. As such, obtaining text messages from the personal property of the listed individuals would place an unreasonable burden on the City, and, to the extent any such records even exist, the City is under no obligation to produce such records."

Hill’s claims that the city has no custody over personal cell phones, that searching for the records would create a burden and that the city is under no obligation to produce the records, is not true.

A 2016 amendment to the Kansas Open Records Act makes personal cell phones and emails subject to open record laws.

Max Kautsch, media law attorney, said if Hill’s denial stands, the law isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

KSHB 41 attorney sends letter demanding the release of former Marion police chief's emails, texts

KSHB 41 News, through its attorney, has sent a letter to the city of Marion demanding the release of Gideon Cody's personal text messages and emails.

Related . . .

Police chief who raided Marion newsroom sent text to county DA saying KBI is '100% behind me'

Text messages obtained by the KSHB 41 I-Team reveal Gideon Cody claimed the Kansas Bureau of Investigation was "100 percent behind" him one day after the raids on Marion County Record and two homes.