This article contains news and liberal commentary.
It’s almost certain that Kentucky’s Republican attorney general shielded the cops who killed Breonna Taylor from prosecution.
After the grand jury made the unpopular decision to charge one of them for endangering a white neighbor, but returned no indictments for Taylor’s death, the AG’s office tried to distance itself from the decision and blame the grand jury. That provoked one of the jurors to seek to set the record straight about what happened in the grand jury proceedings.
The still-unidentified juror, through an attorney, filed a court motion to force release of the grand jury transcript and the materials presented to the grand jury “so the truth will come out.” Speaking through the attorney, the juror accused the AG of misrepresenting to the public what had been presented to the grand jury.
The AG resisted releasing any information, arguing the case is still under federal investigation, but a judge ordered the audio recording of the grand jury proceedings released, and on Tuesday, September 28, 2020, he agreed to comply. The following day, with disclosure inevitable, he admitted he only asked for the reckless endangerment charge, and didn’t seek charges for Taylor’s death because he believed the officers were “justified” in shooting into her apartment. In short, he sided with the police, and he — not the grand jury — made the decision to let them off the hook for killing an innocent black woman in her bed.
Grand jury proceedings normally are secret, but can be disclosed in some circumstances. Taylor’s family and the black community immediately suspected the AG sandbagged the proceedings, and demanded transparency about the grand jury proceedings. It’s now known the AG didn’t ask for charges for Taylor’s killing, but what his motives were and whether that’s a fair exercise of judgment is still unanswered.
I previously wrote here that while “prosecuting these officers was symbolically important to Taylor’s family and supporters, the black community, and many other citizens concerned with social justice … they shouldn’t be prosecuted for political reasons, e.g. to placate community outrage. … But a grand jury proceeding isn’t like a trial. The prosecutor (in this case the attorney general) controls what evidence the grand jury sees, what indictments are sought, and can sabotage a viable case if he wants to. If he did, that’s on him, not the grand jury. If he didn’t, it’s possible the grand jury refused to indict when they should have, out of pro-police bias or for some other reason. If they did, that’s on the grand jurors. … For now, I’ll assume both acted in good faith and this decision is based on the law, in which case we should defend it, because it’s in all our interests to maintain the rule of law.”
But while no one should be prosecuted for political reasons, nor should anyone be shielded from prosecution for political reasons. Decisions to prosecute or not prosecute should be impartial and based on the evidence, and political considerations should play no role in those decisions.
I wrote that it’s important “to determine whether the grand jury proceedings were fair or rigged in the officers’ favor” because “let’s face it, the police and justice system are deeply distrusted by a large part of the community right now,” and a lack of transparency “will only deepen distrust and harden those suspicions.” All the more so because the optics are terrible: An officer was indicted for endangering a white neighbor, but no one was indicted for endangering the innocent black woman who was killed. Moreover, it looks racist, although it may not be; there could be other reasons for local and now state prosecutors to seek criminal charges against the officers. And keep in mind the attorney general is a black man; while the fact he’s a Republican may have bearing on his handling of the case, the fact he’s the same race as Taylor makes it less likely that race does.
He could argue the officers were justified in returning fire after one of them was shot from inside her apartment, which did happen. But that justification would still depend on whether the search warrant and raid were reasonable in the first place, and there’s also a factual question of whether the police announced themselves before breaking in. If they didn’t, there probably should be indictments for Taylor’s death. The AG didn’t give the grand jury the opportunity to make that decision, as he should have. He preempted the grand jury’s role by making the decision himself. Grand juries won’t normally bring indictments the prosecutor didn’t ask for.
The fact local prosecutors declined to prosecute Taylor’s boyfriend for shooting one of the cops — a highly unusual prosecutorial decision to say the least — deepens suspicions that the cops bungled the raid. He claimed they didn’t identify themselves and he thought they were intruders. In that event, he would have a strong legal defense. But the AG says “one” witness heard the officers shout, “Police!” Multiple other witnesses say they didn’t hear anything.
So there’s a question of whether the AG selectively went with a single witness favorable to the police and brushed off the statements of several other witnesses who confirmed what the boyfriend said. If it turns out that he presented that one witness to the grand jury and didn’t tell the jurors about the other witnesses, then the grand jury proceeding was a sham and a whitewash. A transcript or audio recording of the proceedings should resolve that question.
Meanwhile, a newly released recording of the boyfriend’s arrest (police say there is no recording of the shooting) shows one of the officers told the boyfriend as he was being arrested that he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. The fact he walked scot-free is, in and of itself, a great big “f— you” to the cops.
Finally, I want to close with this: My writings on this blog are critical of lousy cops. I’m 100% supportive of police officers who do their jobs professionally and well, and you should be, too. We need police to keep our communities safe. Without them, who do you call if you’re assaulted, robbed, or someone breaks into your home? It’s a difficult and sometimes dangerous job, and those who perform it well deserve our appreciation. But this is a job that must be done right! Some people demand unqualified support for police, even when they’re in the wrong, and want us to overlook police bungling and misconduct. Police unions are in the forefront of this push. But that’s stupid, because it’ll hurt police in the long run, by keeping police in a state of disrepute. Essentially, they don’t want to weed out bad cops, and want to block necessary reforms. That’s an approach to the problems with American policing that none of us should support.
Roger Rabbit, the author of this article, is an anonymous blogger, the acting editor of this blog following its owner’s death, an intellectual, a writer, a former journalist, a lawyer, and a retired judge.