A King County Superior Court judge issued a “stay” or hold Tuesday on a search warrant that the Renton Police Department is using to gather information about who created cartoon parodies of the department.

Judge James Cayce has set a hearing for Aug. 19 to consider a motion to formally set aside the warrant and other rulings he issued on July 14 and July 28. In the meantime the City Attorney Department for the City of Renton will prepare a briefing for the judge.

It’s possible Cayce could decide the warrant’s ultimate fate before the formal hearing.

City Attorney Larry Warren indicated Tuesday he’s confident the city’s legal analysis that led to the search warrant will prevail.

The search warrant specifically sought information from a division of Google Inc. about the identity of the creator of the videos which were posted online in April but were soon removed.

The order means that until the warrant’s fate is decided, any evidence the Police Department now obtains through the warrant must be placed in a sealed envelope, Warren said.

The rest of the Police Department’s investigation into the creator of the eight videos can continue, he said.

The request for a stay was filed on Aug. 9 in King County Superior Court by Harish Bharti, a Seattle trial lawyer.

Warren pointed out the motion didn’t disclose a client, which means “we really don’t know if they have standing to bring the motion or not.”

The Renton Police Department maintains three of its employees depicted in some of the eight animated cartoons are the victims of cyberstalking, or the use of electronic communications “to embarrass or emotionally torment” someone.

That position is backed by Warren’s office and was the key argument used to obtain the search warrant from Cayce on July 28. However, the case has drawn the nationwide attention of legal scholars, the ACLU and First Amendment advocates who maintain the animated videos are protected free speech.

Ronald Collins, a professor of law in the University of Washington Law School who has worked on First Amendment issues for 25 years, said in an interview Tuesday that Renton prosecutors, Judge Cayce and the Police Department are “all acting unconstitutionally.”

It’s hard to imagine, he said, that the cyberstalking statute was written with the Renton situation in mind. “They were more concerned about abuses against private individuals,” he said, and not politicians.

Anyone is free to go to the town square and embarrass a public official from morning to night, he said, as long as they aren’t a nuisance. But he relates that same scenario to the animated videos.

“Is something I can do in public all of a sudden something I can’t do in cyberspace?” he asks.

Renton’s city attorney, who has practiced law for more than 30 years and has tried many First Amendment cases, disagrees with Collins’ analysis.

Free speech and cyberstalking are “completely different topics. They shouldn’t be mixed up,” he said.

Someone can call for Barack Obama’s impeachment, which is free speech, he said, but spray-painting something on a fence is a crime. The city maintains “there is probable cause to believe that the elements of a crime may be there” to prosecute a case of cyberstalking, he said. That’s why the city requested a criminal search warrant, he said.

“That’s my belief that the videos are not protected free speech,” he said. “Someone who doesn’t have all the facts could disagree with that.”