Judge, issued a "stay" of the Renton police cartoon search warrant.

RENTON, Wash. -- The judge who signed a criminal cyber-stalking search warrant, seeking the name of an anonymous cartoon animator mocking the Renton police department, has apparently changed his mind.

King County Judge James Cayce, issued a "stay" of the search warrant Tuesday, pending full court hearing on the matter scheduled for August 19. The ruling is in response to a ‘motion to quash’ filed by a Seattle first amendment rights attorney.

It's possible Cayce could decide the warrant's ultimate fate before the formal hearing.

The request for a stay was filed on Aug. 9 in King County Superior Court by Harish Bharti, a Seattle trial lawyer.

City Attorney Larry Warren pointed out the motion didn't disclose a client, which means "we really don't know if they have standing to bring the motion or not."

Ronald Collins, a professor of law in the University of Washington Law School who has worked on First Amendment issues for 25 years, said in an interview Tuesday that Renton prosecutors, Judge Cayce and the Police Department are "all acting unconstitutionally."

It's hard to imagine, he said, that the cyberstalking statute was written with the Renton situation in mind. "They were more concerned about abuses against private individuals," he said, and not politicians.

Anyone is free to go to the town square and embarrass a public official from morning to night, he said, as long as they aren't a nuisance. But he relates that same scenario to the animated videos.

"Is something I can do in public all of a sudden something I can't do in cyberspace?" he asks.


To view all nine videos go to this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc6-vlJG1W0

Links: http://www.kirotv.com/news/28815941/detail.html

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/sound/article/Judge-puts-hold-on-cyberstalking-warrant-1840577.php