A West Virginia librarian accused of trying to recruit someone to assassinate President Donald Trump is walking free after prosecutors dismissed the terroristic-threat charge against her, not because the evidence was weak, but because sheriff's deputies failed to read her Miranda rights.
Morgan L. Morrow of Ripley, West Virginia, was charged in January with one count of making a terroristic threat after she allegedly posted a social media video with the caption: "Surely a sniper with a terminal illness cannot be a big ask out of 343 million." Jackson County prosecutors moved to dismiss the case without prejudice, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported, citing Clarksburg-area station WDTV.
The reason was procedural, not exculpatory. Court documents stated that officers from the Jackson County Sheriff's Department failed to advise Morrow of her Miranda rights during questioning. That single lapse, a basic step drilled into every recruit at every police academy in the country, handed Morrow's defense team everything it needed.
Jackson County prosecutors filed to dismiss on April 16, Fox News reported, after concluding Morrow had not been properly Mirandized during her interrogation. The dismissal was "without prejudice," meaning prosecutors could, in theory, refile. But without usable statements from the suspect, the path to a conviction narrows sharply.
Morrow's attorney, Mark Atkinson, left little ambiguity about how the defense viewed the outcome:
"This case has been dismissed. We feel it never should have been brought in the first place."
Whether it should have been brought is debatable. Whether it was botched is not. The Jackson County Sheriff's Department arrested Morrow at 9:31 p.m. EDT on January 25, the same evening the Libs of TikTok account flagged her posts on X. The department announced the charge on its Facebook page. And then, apparently, the officers who handled the interrogation skipped one of the most fundamental procedural requirements in American law enforcement.
That kind of failure does not inspire confidence. It does not protect the public. And it does not hold accountable a person who, if the allegations are accurate, used a public platform to float the idea of a terminally ill sniper taking a shot at the president of the United States.
The dismissal landed at a particularly grim moment. Less than a week before the charges were dropped, a would-be assassin targeted Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Cole Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, California, appeared in court Monday to face charges of attempting to assassinate the president and using a firearm while committing a violent crime. That attempt reportedly took place the preceding Saturday.
Allen's case is only the latest in a pattern that stretches back to the 2024 presidential campaign. In July 2024, Thomas Crooks fired multiple shots at Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, striking him in the right ear. Two months later, a Secret Service agent thwarted Ryan Wesley Routh, who was lurking near the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a rifle. Routh was convicted of attempting to assassinate Trump and sentenced to life in prison.
Three known assassination-related incidents against a sitting or then-candidate president in under two years. A fourth person, Morrow, accused of openly soliciting someone to carry out the act. And now, because of a procedural blunder by local law enforcement, that fourth case has evaporated.
The Libs of TikTok account posted about Morrow on X on January 25, 2026, identifying her as a librarian at Jackson County Public Library. The post described Morrow as appearing to call for someone to assassinate Trump and noted that other commenters on the same thread allegedly called for harm against Stephen Miller, Larry Ellison, and Peter Thiel.
The post added pointedly: "Our tax dollars pay her salary." Morrow was arrested that same evening.
The video caption attributed to Morrow, "Surely a sniper with a terminal illness cannot be a big ask out of 343 million", was apparently posted on her Instagram account. That language is not ambiguous. It is not satire that requires a decoder ring. It describes a specific method, a specific type of recruit, and frames the task as statistically manageable given the size of the American population.
Whether that language rises to a prosecutable terroristic threat under West Virginia law is a question that will now go unanswered, not because a jury weighed the evidence, but because the officers who arrested Morrow did not follow protocol.
The Morrow dismissal fits a broader pattern in which high-profile cases tied to political threats or misconduct collapse or quietly fade. The Justice Department recently closed its criminal investigation of Jerome Powell without prosecution, handing the remaining probe to an inspector general. In a different vein, the DOJ indicted former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram post, a case that underscored how seriously federal prosecutors can treat social media conduct when they choose to.
The contrast is instructive. Federal authorities pursued Comey's social media activity aggressively. Jackson County deputies couldn't manage to read a suspect her rights before asking questions.
Neither the White House nor the Secret Service immediately responded to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Whether Morrow still holds her position at the Jackson County Public Library is unclear from available reporting. Whether prosecutors intend to refile, as the "without prejudice" designation technically permits, is also unknown.
Several basic facts remain unresolved. Which prosecutor or prosecuting office made the final call to dismiss? Which court handled the proceeding? What did the full court documents say beyond the Miranda failure? And has anyone in the Jackson County Sheriff's Department faced consequences for the procedural lapse that sank the case?
These are not trivial questions. A woman allegedly used social media to float the assassination of a sitting president. She was arrested, charged, and then released, not because the system concluded she was innocent, but because the system failed to do its job correctly at the most basic level.
Meanwhile, the threat environment around Trump continues to intensify. The federal government has clashed with state officials over enforcement priorities and officer protections. Routh sits in prison for life. Allen faces federal charges. Crooks is dead. And Morrow is free.
The "without prejudice" designation means the door is not permanently closed. Prosecutors could, in theory, build a case without the tainted statements. But the practical reality is that a dismissed charge rarely comes back to life, especially in a local jurisdiction without unlimited resources.
Morrow's attorney says the case never should have been brought. Maybe. But the reason it fell apart had nothing to do with the merits of the allegation and everything to do with officers who skipped a step that every cop in America is trained to perform before the first question leaves their lips.
When the threats are real and the stakes are lethal, procedural competence is not optional. It is the bare minimum. Jackson County failed to clear that bar, and the public is left with nothing, no verdict, no accountability, and no assurance that the next case will be handled any differently.
