Police acted legally when they searched the home and backpack of a kidnapping and burglary suspect who happens to be a vocal police critic.

Dale E. McCormick — who routinely videotapes Lawrence Police traffic stops while raining foul-mouthed tirades on officers — had sought to suppress evidence police found after arresting him Feb. 16 on suspicion of breaking into the home of a woman who claims McCormick has been stalking her.

McCormick’s attorneys argued, among other points, that police had no grounds for the warrantless search of the backpack and that a later search warrant for McCormick’s home — which sought evidence including computers, video equipment and any documentation of the relationship between the two — was overly broad.

Douglas County District Judge Michael Malone disagreed. He found that jail officers legally searched the backpack after McCormick’s arrest as part of a routine inventory search, and Malone said the application for a search warrant sufficiently described what police thought was in the home and why it was relevant.

“The search warrant was proper … under all the rules that needed to be complied with,” Malone said.

Malone also denied a motion to exclude evidence of the history of the relationship between McCormick and the woman, which began when they met in a class at Washburn University in 1997.

“Obviously, it would be impossible … for the jury to look at this in a vacuum,” Malone said.

McCormick’s jury trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 17.