Felony charges against two former Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in connection with the 2020 death of Breonna Taylor were dismissed on Friday.
Taylor was killed after police entered the apartment where she was living with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker. Police were serving a drug warrant, which contained false information, and resulted in gunfire when Walker fired on police, leading them to return fire, killing Taylor.
Former Louisville Police Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany were charged with having put Taylor in a dangerous situation by falsifying part of the warrant that sent police to her apartment, according to CBS.
However on Thursday, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Charles Simpson III threw out the felony deprivation of rights under the color of law charges, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Prosecutors needed to prove Taylor’s death was “the natural and probable consequence” of their actions. Attorneys representing Jaynes and Meany, both fired after the incident, said Walker altered the course of events by firing at police.
Remember the Breonna Taylor case?
Been telling you guys for four years the cops did nothing wrong because her boyfriend fired at them first.
Today a federal judge dismissed the indictments against the officers. pic.twitter.com/hkMMaFFu2b
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) August 23, 2024
Simpson called Walker’s decision to shoot at officers a ”superseding cause” that became the “legal cause of her death.”
“There is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death,” he ruled, according to CBS.
Was this a fair ruling?
The judge rejected a contention of the prosecution that misconduct “involved the use of a dangerous weapon and resulted in Taylor’s death,” according to the Courier Journal.
Instead, Simpson said police used their weapons against someone shooting at them, not to “facilitate, further, or aid in conducting the search itself.”
He ruled police drew their guns for “self-protection, not facilitating the allegedly unlawful search.”
The ruling would have a major impact on sentences, if the officers are convicted. Instead of facing possible sentences of life in prison, they could face no more than a year in prison.
Jaynes will still face a charge of conspiring with another detective to cover up the false warrant issued to raid Taylor’s apartment and of falsifying a document to mislead investigators. Meany faces a charge of making a false statement to FBI investigators.
Louisville lawyer Thomas Clay said Jaynes, his client, was pleased with the ruling.
“This dismissal places the burden on the United States as to how to proceed on the dismissal of this order,” Clay said.
In a written statement, Taylor’s family said, “Obviously we are devastated at the moment by the judge’s ruling with which we disagree and are just trying to process everything,” according to Louisville Public Media.
The family said it believes the Justice Department will appeal the case.
“The appeal will extend the life of the case, but we’ve always maintained, and we will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor,” the statement said.
