While there’s inevitably going to be a lot of finger-pointing, the main “villains” seem to be the sheriff (who seems to be retaliating against what he perceives as “newspaper overreach”, and maybe because it might give him the opportunity to find out who was passing along the sexual misconduct allegations), the judge (who seems to have just rubber-stamped the search warrant, with good ol’ boy network assurances that the paperwork would follow later on), and maybe the DA - I’m not sure if s/he was involved in this clusterfuck.

But the thing is, all three of them are public officials. And they’re going to claim qualified immunity:

Qualified immunity is a judge-made legal protection that shields government officials from claims of unconstitutional conduct. It is a unique and specialized defense available only to government actors and can, if applied, allow those actors to avoid responsibility for constitutional violations.

Qualified Immunity has been thrust into the spotlight in cases of misconduct by law enforcement. When sued for constitutional violations, police officers frequently claim qualified immunity applies and therefore the case should be dismissed. [per the Kansas ACLU]

But does that actually hurt the ones responsible?