An award-winning Lawrence police officer has been suspended after a Douglas County District Court judge found the policeman lied to obtain a search warrant in a drug case.

As a result of Judge Michael Malone’s finding, the district attorney also is reviewing cases that hinge on Officer Stuart “Mike” Peck’s testimony and will throw those out as sullied cases.

Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney said those cases that can’t be won without Peck’s testimony would be dismissed.

“As far as we’re concerned, this officer is not available to testify on criminal cases at this time,” she said.

Kenney said she expected “more than a dozen” such cases to be dismissed.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “I’m afraid this is going to cause a lot of hardship.”

A spokesman for the Lawrence Police Department said Peck’s conduct was under investigation.

“We’ve seen the ruling — we knew it was coming,” Lt. Dave Cobb said. “We’re reviewing it and there will be a response, though at this point I don’t know what form the response will take. By that I mean I don’t know whether it’ll be public. It may be dealt with as a personnel issue.”

Cobb said Malone’s ruling was being taken “very seriously” by the department, and that past and present cases involving Peck as a witness were being “scrutinized.”

Cobb declined comment on Peck’s suspension. “That’s a personnel matter. I can’t say anything,” he said.

But Shelley Bock, a Lawrence defense attorney, said he was notified last week by the District Attorney’s Office that charges against one of his clients would be dismissed because Peck “is unavailable due to being on administrative leave.”

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Another source familiar with Peck confirmed the suspension.

Informant credibility

In a ruling released late Friday, Malone cited Peck for assuring the court that an informant’s credibility was “unquestioned” when, in fact, the informant had a lengthy criminal record and was a known drug user.

Peck’s assurances contributed to the court’s approving a Nov. 3, 2001, search warrant that supported felony drug charges filed against James D. Hawkins, then 22.

Because Peck misled the court, Malone said he had no choice but to suppress evidence, including marijuana, cocaine and drug paraphernalia, collected during Peck’s search of Hawkins’ residence, 406 E. 12th St.

Peck sought the search warrant after the informant told him Hawkins was an active drug dealer who kept “a fairly good quantity of crack cocaine in the residence.”

The informant is not identified in the ruling or in the charges — felony possession of marijuana, felony possession of cocaine, felony possession of drug paraphernalia — filed against Hawkins.

In Malone’s statement, the judge said Peck had assured the court that his informant’s past included a few “traffic-type things, driving on a suspended license … a lot of domestic-type things. A lot of failure to appears or failure to complies. There was a theft.”

But Malone later learned the informant had been convicted of drunken driving three times, felony theft two times, forgery once and bad checks once.

Malone also found that Peck arranged to have the informant’s speeding tickets and a domestic violence charge dismissed in exchange for information.

In retrospect, Malone said the court “would not have considered the information attributed to the confidential informant as reliable” and would not have approved the search warrant.

Malone also questioned why marijuana that Peck and another officer took from the informant during an earlier traffic stop didn’t lead to the informant being charged with possession.

Neither Hawkins nor his attorney, James Rumsey of Lawrence, could be reached for comment. The case is pending before Malone.

Malone declined a request for an interview.

Peck could not be reached for comment.

Welcomed ruling

Defense attorneys welcomed Malone’s ruling.

“As chairman of the Douglas County Criminal Defense Bar Association, I can assure you that, as a group, we’ve been concerned about Officer Peck’s work for quite some time,” said attorney Jonathan Becker.

“But for now, it appears that Officer Peck quite clearly crossed the line — you don’t lie in an affidavit that’s submitted to the court,” Becker said. “That’s a very, very big deal.”

It’s not unusual, Becker and Bock said, for informants in drug cases to be of questionable character.

“That’s not the issue here — that’s something that’s left up to the judge to weigh,” Bock said. “What happened here was the judge was told the informant had been checked out and was credible, when in fact that wasn’t true.

“If Officer Peck had said ‘Judge, here’s all the stuff my informant’s done in the past — and it’s bad — but in this case, I think he’s telling the truth,’ it’s entirely possible the judge would have signed off on (the search warrant),” Bock said. “But that’s not what happened. That’s not what the judge was told.”

Peck had been with the department since early 2000 and in law enforcement since 1981. He was named Officer of the Year last year during a ceremony sponsored by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 852. He also is well known among Lawrence defense attorneys for his roles in drug arrests.