An Orange County (OC) judge accused of signing warrants remotely while he was abroad is being investigated without reason, according to a retired judicial officer.
“I could not find any reference to a requirement that the duty judge had to be in the county when signing search warrants,” said former Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell.
Cordell was reacting to news that Orange County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Thompson had allegedly improperly signed some 19 search warrants while residing in Canada, which allegedly violates a rule requiring that warrants be approved locally.
“The OC Local Rules make no mention of such a requirement,” Cordell told the Southern California Record. “The local rules don’t even mention search warrants. I have yet to find such a rule and in the media reporting, the specific rule is never identified.”
Thompson was working the graveyard shift for night court operations but has been reassigned to a courtroom in the North Justice Center in Fullerton, according to media reports.
“In my view, this is much ado over nothing,” said Cordell who worked as a judge from 1982 to 2001 and authored a book called Her Honor. “If there were a local rule and the judge either didn't know about it or just blatantly violated it, that's something to talk about but I don't believe it furnishes a constitutional basis to say the search warrants he signed in Canada are no good.”
NBC reported that Thompson’s work-issued tablet showed roaming charges from Canada, which were brought to the attention of court authorities, and an outside law firm referred the alleged violation to prosecutors.
“We live in the era of social media, of the internet where people are traveling,” Cordell added. “Because of COVID, we do all this stuff electronically and I believe there are judges, maybe other judges in and outside Orange County, who maybe went to a safe place outside of the county, and they're stopped from issuing search warrants? That’s ridiculous. It makes no sense to me.”
Thompson is represented by attorney Paul S. Meyer, according to a press release issued by OC Superior Court.