A black man is the hero of the Breonna Taylor search warrant
Political Heat, Post 6 - The BT search warrant provoked rioting and cries for justice, but one man saw it in a different light.
Last week we learned that KY Western District Judge Charles Simpson III dismissed major felony charges against Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany. Jaynes and Meany are among former officers who prepared the Breonna Taylor search warrant.
Judge Simpson maintained that the USA must prove that the LMPD had no probable cause to search the apartment of Breonna Taylor. But Jaynes contended that a court, not a jury, should be able to determine that. (p. 6, Document 49, cr-00085)
Simpson agreed with the Defense that the officers who executed the search warrant, did not use their weapons as part of a search, but rather in self defense. Therefore to allege that Jaynes and Meany knew the ‘execution team’ would be armed is not relevant. Don’t blame Jaynes and Meany for Kenneth Walker shooting Sgt. Mattingly.
The above screenshot shows an aspect of the ruling in the 33-page document that is free on PACER.gov/
The numerous charges by the DOJ against Kelly Goodlett who has pled guilty, Jaynes, Meany and Brett Hankison, by now have cost taxpayers and organizations millions of dollars, huge swaths of time, lives put on hold, intense suffering by families, much else, and there is yet a very long way to go. The Consent Decree that resulted is expected to cost Louisville taxpayers upwards of $8 million annually and potentially MUCH more, and more federal trials are upcoming.
This blog series seeks to encourage attendance at Brett’s trial and to bemoan how political and partisan objectives overshadow facts and the light of truth.
Let’s look at the Search Warrant, a critical piece of the legal process. The Breonna Taylor warrant—
Has become mired in legal and grandstand maneuvers
Has been frequently attacked as unjustified by attorneys, government actors, the media and celebrities
Prompted the Kentucky Legislature to pass a law banning no-knock warrants though there is clear evidence in writing that the BT warrant was a knock-and-announce with seven officers testifying it was
Prompted the Louisville Metro Council to unanimously vote to ban no-knock warrants, followed by the Lexington Council.
Inspired Senator Rand Paul to introduce a Senate bill, the ‘Justice for Breonna Taylor Act’, to ban no-knock warrants in most forms across the country. Last spring Representative Morgan McGarvey announced his House bill to ban no-knock warrants.
All these items can easily be searched on the web.
But would you think of searching for the topic in relation to an initiative carried out by then Attorney General Daniel Cameron?
Cameron was the one man who refused to play the Blame Game. Instead, he formed a Search Warrant Task Force. His stated purpose was —
“to convene the many interested stakeholders involved in the search warrant process and to provide a public forum in which they—along with the public—could discuss and debate, in a transparent manner, how to make that process safer and more effective for everyone involved.”
He appointed 18 members who represented:
The KY conference of the NAACP
KY Association of Chiefs of Police
KY Association of Counties
Office of the Public Advocate
KY County Attorneys’ Association
KY Commonwealth’s Attorneys Association
KY Sheriffs’ Association
KY Narcotics Officers Association
Citizens-at-large including a former Louisville Metro Council member
KY Senate and House Judiciary Committees
KY Fraternal Order of Police
KY State Police
KY Court of Justice
KY League of Cities
KY Department of Criminal Justice Training
The Attorney General or his designee, as chair
They met monthly from May 2021 through December 2021. All meetings were open to the public, and each one is online on the AG YouTube channel. Public comments were invited and facilitated.
The Task Force members established three committees: Securing, Reviewing and Serving. They made eight recommendations which can be read in their Final Report on pages 10-11.
One of the Task Force members who was the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a Resolution during the 2022 Regular Session, “urging parties involved in the search warrant process to support the adoption of the consensus recommendations of the Search Warrant Task Force established by Attorney General Daniel Cameron.”
The bill never moved beyond its introduction.
Perhaps in the future the hard work of the Task Force will be remembered and their advice implemented.
Meanwhile, police die whether or not a warrant is no-knock. Last April four law enforcement officers who were members of a Regional Fugitive Task Force serving a warrant at a residence in Charlotte, NC, were killed at about 1 PM, a safe time to serve— right? All were shot by one man— ‘a career criminal with an extensive criminal history’ who wielded an AR-15 rifle.
An AR-15 is able to penetrate traditional body armor (police vests - Ed) and allowed the shooter to “unload several rounds towards our officers within a matter of seconds,” said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings.
Just before last weekend, a brief was added by the prosecutors to the USA v. Hankison retrial docket, asking Judge Jennings not to permit any mention of the AR rifle casings found in Breonna’s apartment. The political heat is on.
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