Judge Rules Breonna Taylor’s Boyfriend Caused Her Death, Drops Some Charges

LOADING ERROR LOADING LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out major felony charges against two former Louisville officers accused of falsifying a warrant that led police to Breonna Taylor’s door before they fatally shot her. U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson’s ruling declared that the actions of Taylor’s boyfriend, who fired a shot at police the night of the raid, were the legal cause of her death, not a bad warrant. Garland accused Jaynes and Meany, who were not present at the raid, of knowing they had falsified part of the warrant and put Taylor in a dangerous situation by sending armed officers to her apartment. But Simpson wrote in the Tuesday ruling that “there is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death.” Simpson’s ruling effectively reduced the civil rights violation charges against Jaynes and Meany, which had carried a maximum sentence of life in prison, to misdemeanors. When police carrying a drug warrant broke down Taylor’s door in March 2020, her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot that struck an officer in the leg. Advertisement Simpson concluded that Walker’s “conduct became the proximate, or legal, cause of Taylor’s death.” “While the indictment alleges that Jaynes and Meany set off a series of events that ended in Taylor’s death, it also alleges that (Walker) disrupted those events when he decided to open fire” on the police, Simpson wrote. “Obviously we are devastated at the moment by the judge’s ruling with which we disagree and are just trying to process everything,” Taylor’s family wrote in a statement Friday to The Associated Press. “The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient … we will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor.” The U.S. Justice Department said in an email that it “is reviewing the judge’s decision and assessing next steps.” Advertisement A third former officer charged in the federal warrant case, Kelly Goodlett, pleaded guilty in 2022 to a conspiracy charge and is expected to testify against Jaynes and Meany at their trials. Federal prosecutors alleged Jaynes, who drew up the Taylor warrant, had claimed to Goodlett days before the warrant was served that he had “verified” from a postal inspector that a suspected drug dealer was receiving packages at Taylor’s apartment. Two months later, when the Taylor shooting was attracting national headlines, Jaynes and Goodlett met in Jaynes’ garage to “get on the same page” before Jaynes talked to investigators about the Taylor warrant, court records said. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/judge-rules-breonna-taylors-boyfriend-caused-her-death-drops-some-charges_n_66c9eefce4b0c83b4887c2ac