Judge blames Breonna Taylor's boyfriend for fatal shooting and acquits two Louisville police officers of serious crimes

A federal judge acquitted two former Louisville police officers of charges related to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, instead blaming Taylor's boyfriend for her death.

In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson dropped charges of “deprivation of rights under cover of law” against former Louisville Police Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sergeant Kyle Meany.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland first announced charges against Jaynes and Meany during a high-profile visit to Louisville in August 2022. Garland accused Jaynes and Meany, who were not present during the fatal raid on Taylor's apartment in 2020, of knowing they had forged part of the warrant and putting the 26-year-old black woman in a dangerous situation by sending armed officers to her door.

Simpson stated that the actions of Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who shot at police on the night of the raid, were the legal cause of her death, not an invalid arrest warrant.

The city of Louisville agreed in December 2022 to pay Walker $2 million to settle lawsuits filed in state and federal courts as the nation was rocked by anti-police protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

When police broke down Taylor's door in March 2020 as part of a drug search warrant, Walker fired a shot that struck an officer, former Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly, in the leg. Walker said he believed an intruder had entered. Officers returned fire, striking and killing Taylor in her hallway. Simpson concluded that Walker's “conduct was the proximate or legal cause of Taylor's death.”

In his ruling last week, the judge said there was “no direct connection between the warrantless entry and Taylor's death.”

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“While the prosecution alleges that Jaynes and Meany set in motion a series of events that ended in Taylor's death, it also alleges that (Walker) interfered with those events when he decided to open fire on police,” Simpson wrote.

The judge effectively reduced the civil rights violation charges against Jaynes and Meany, which would have carried a maximum sentence of life in prison, to misdemeanors.

Kenneth Walker stands in front of a portrait of Breonna Taylor during a protest memorial service in Jefferson Square Park in Louisville, Kentucky on March 13, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

Simpson declined to drop a conspiracy charge against Jaynes and another charge against Meany, who is accused of making false statements to FBI investigators.

“We are very pleased with the court's decision,” Meany's attorney Brian Butler told the Louisville Courier Journal.

“This dismissal places the onus on the United States for action following the dismissal of this order,” Jaynes' attorney Thomas Clay told the Journal.

“Obviously, right now we are devastated by the judge's decision, which we disagree with, and are just trying to process everything,” Taylor's family said in a statement Friday, according to WLKY.

“The assistant district attorneys in the case have informed us of their plans to appeal,” the statement continued. “The only thing we can do at this point is to continue to be patient. The appeal will prolong the case, but as we have always said, we will keep fighting until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor.”

The Justice Department said in an email to the Associated Press that it is “reviewing the judge's decision and considering next steps.”

Former police sergeant Kyle Meany testified in Louisville on February 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, Pool)

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A third former officer charged in the federal arrest warrant case, Kelly Goodlett, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2022 and is expected to testify at the trials of Jaynes and Meany.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Jaynes, who issued the warrant for Taylor's arrest, told Goodlett days before the warrant was served that he had “confirmed” from a postal inspector that a suspected drug dealer was receiving packages at Taylor's apartment. But Goodlett knew that was false and told Jaynes the warrant did not yet contain enough information linking Taylor to criminal activity, prosecutors said.

She added a paragraph saying the suspected drug dealer listed Taylor's apartment as his current address, court records show. Two months later, as Taylor's shooting made national headlines, Jaynes and Goodlett met in Jaynes' garage to “come to a common ground” before Jaynes spoke to investigators about the warrant for Taylor's arrest, court records say.

A fourth former officer, Brett Hankison, was also charged by federal prosecutors in 2022 for endangering the lives of Taylor, Walker and several of their neighbors when he shot into Taylor's window.

A state jury acquitted Hankison of reckless endangerment in 2022.

A photo of Breonna Taylor is seen during the 2nd annual Defend Black Women March at Black Lives Matter Plaza on July 30, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Frontline Action Hub)

A federal trial last year on alleged civil rights violations ended in a hung jury. Hankison is scheduled to be tried again on those charges in October.

Clay told the Journal that the Justice Department is waiting for the outcome of Hankison's retrial in October before it can schedule the trial of Jaynes and Meany.

FBI ballistics revealed that the bullet that killed Taylor was likely fired by former Louisville detective Myles Cosgrove.

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He and Mattingly were not charged by a state grand jury in 2020, and a two-year FBI investigation also cleared Cosgrove and Mattingly of any criminal wrongdoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.