A federal judge dismissed felony charges against two former Louisville police officers in the Breonna Taylor case. According to multiple reports, Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany were cleared of charges carrying potential life sentences for their roles in Taylor’s 2020 death.
Taylor, an unarmed Black woman, was shot and killed by cops in her apartment during a botched raid. Jaynes and Meany faced charges for the use of a dangerous weapon to deprive Taylor of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search. Jaynes and Meany were not present at the scene of the shooting, but the two falsified information for a warrant to search Taylor’s home.
Judge Charles Simpson claimed the bad warrant was not the cause of Taylor’s death. The judge blamed Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who shot a cop in the leg. Walker grabbed a legally owned gun and fired a shot when officers broke into the apartment. Walker thought the police were intruders. Officers returned fire, killing Taylor.
“There is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death,” Judge Simpson ruled. “As a result, the issue becomes whether law deems [Walker’s] decision to shoot first to supersede the warrantless entry such that his conduct became the proximate, or legal, cause of Taylor’s death. The court concludes [Walker’s] decision to shoot first did just that.”
Judge Simpson said prosecutors failed to prove officers executing the no-knock warrant “used their firearms for the purpose of subjecting Taylor to the search.” The judge determined the “only active employment of a weapon alleged in the indictment is ‘use’ for self-defense, i.e. returning [Walker’s] fire.”
Jaynes is still charged with falsification of records in a federal investigation and conspiracy to falsify records and witness tampering. He faces up to 40 years in prison.
Meany remains on the hook for a false statement to federal investigators charge. The maximum sentence is five years in prison.