KS: Judge was former ADA who prosecuted def 15 years earlier for fraud; he was “neutral and detached” and could issue SW in murder case unrelated to prior prosecution

(1) The judge issuing the search warrants in this murder case was a former Chief Deputy District Attorney who had prosecuted defendant for financial crimes more than 15 years earlier. That connection was insufficient to show that he was not a neutral and detached magistrate when the search warrants here were presented to him. There were no common facts. Similar are: United States v. Outler, 659 F.2d 1306 (5th Cir. 1981); United States v. DeLuna, 763 F.2d 897 (8th Cir. 1985); United States v. Freerksen, 457 Fed. Appx. 769 (10th Cir. 2012). And, this is a kidnapping, sexual battery, and murder case 15 years later. (2) The District Judges have authority to issue search warrants across county lines, and (3) law enforcement officers in this metropolitan county can execute them. (4) Defendant’s trash containers were not on the curtilage when the officers searched, and (5) there is no expectation of privacy in a trash container out for collection. State v. Robinson, 2015 Kan. LEXIS 929 (Nov. 6, 2015)

[Note: First, this is a death penalty case and it has a spirited argument in dissent over the constitutionality of the death penalty under the state constitution. Second, this case was pending a really long time. Its docket number is 90196. Decided the same day is 107872. The murder was in 2000. Trial took six weeks ending October 29, 2002. 90197 was decided July 24, 2004. So, one can surmise that the record was filed 11 years ago. Third, this may be the longest opinion I’ve ever seen. The pdf is 415 pages. The prior record holder to me is Capano v. State, 781 A.2d 556 (Del. 2001) of 234 pages with 565 footnotes allegedly produced in two months, likely written by everybody on that court, and it is 122 pages in the Atlantic Reporter.]

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