Kentucky’s attorney general, a Republican, will begin presenting evidence against the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in a botched drug raid to a grand jury next week, NBC News reported on Thursday, September 10, 2020. Read story here.
In most states, criminal suspects can either be indicted by a grand jury or charged by a prosecutor. In this case, the local prosecutor, who has to work with local police, recused himself from the case and handed it off to the state’s attorney general who, as in most other states, has overall supervisory authority over criminal justice and local prosecutors.
The grand jury will convene in Louisville, where Taylor was killed on March 13, 2020, by cops serving a search warrant at her apartment in Louisville. Her boyfriend shot at the cops, but charges against him have been dropped. The target of the search didn’t live there.
One of the three cops who fired blindly into the apartment, killing Taylor, has been terminated; two others are on paid leave. It takes the votes of 9 of the 12 grand jurors to indict an individual. Grand juries don’t determine guilt or innocence, but only whether there’s sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial.
Photo: Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron
Wonder if that prosecutor was invited to the AGs after Kentucky Derby party. Wonder what kind words the AG has for that Prosecutor in private.
While we won’t know what the AG tells the grand jury usually the AG or a Prosecutor can get the grand jury to indict if that is what the AG wants. It is a ham sandwich kind of thing.
At least we are where the rubber hits the road, and frankly the outcome may not please those wanting justice for Taylor. There may not be justice in this case. The AG may not really want to try the cops in a case that likely will see the cops exonerated. The cops after were serving a proper and legal warrant and were fired upon. Many police and prosecutors fully support no knock warrants and more than a small minority of jurors will issue these warrants.