Kentucky judge dismisses some charges against two former police officers in connection with Breonna Taylor's death

A judge in Kentucky has dismissed the main charges against two former Louisville police officers who were involved in the raid that ended with Breonna Taylor's death.

Judge Charles R. Simpson III of the U.S. District Court in Western Kentucky said Thursday that Taylor's death was caused by the actions of her boyfriend, who opened fire on March 13, 2020, as police arrived outside her Louisville apartment.

Regardless of whether former Louisville Police Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sergeant Kyle Meany drafted and approved a fake warrant application, it was his friend Kenneth Walker's shooting of what he believed to be intruders that triggered the deadly police response, Simpson said.

Taylor, 26, was killed by police who returned fire.

Civil rights activists had already cited the case as an example of how police allegedly disregarded the life and rights of a black woman when, two months later, black George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis, bringing renewed attention to Taylor's death.

In 2022, a federal grand jury indicted Jaynes, 40, and Meany, 35, accusing them of denying Taylor her constitutional right to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures resulting in death.

The mechanism cited in the case was Jaynes' drafting of an allegedly false search warrant, which Meany approved, stating that there was sufficient evidence linking Taylor's residence to illegal drugs.

Jaynes was also charged with conspiracy to cover up the lack of merit of the search warrant by allegedly creating a supporting document after the fact and then lying to investigators. Meany was charged with lying to federal investigators.

When the charges were announced, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said the charges reflected the primary reason for the Justice Department's existence: protecting Americans' civil rights.

“These violations resulted in Ms. Taylor's death,” he said in a statement at the time. “Breonna Taylor should still be alive today.”

In his judgment on Thursday Simpson cited a timeline based on what happened in Taylor's apartment after the ink on the search warrant dried. Jaynes and Meany were not present during the raid, and their deaths were more directly tied to Walker's decision to open fire, the judge wrote.

“The Court concludes that the warrantless entry was not the actual cause of Taylor's death,” he wrote in his ruling. “The Court further concludes that the death charge requires proof of a proximate cause of death and that the allegations in this case demonstrate that the warrantless entry was not the proximate cause of Taylor's death and even if it were, KW's decision to open fire is the legal cause of death because it is a primary cause of death.”

Simpson's ruling effectively reduced the civil rights charges against Jaynes and Meany, which would have carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, to misdemeanors

The charges of covering up an allegedly false search warrant and lying to investigators remain, the decision states.

Lawyers for the former police officers and Justice Department spokespeople did not immediately respond to NBC News requests for comment.

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

In a statement to AP, Taylor's family said they will “continue to fight until we get full justice for Taylor.”

“Of course, right now we are devastated by the judge's decision, which we disagree with, and are simply trying to process everything,” the statement said, adding that prosecutors had informed the family that they plan to appeal Simpson's decision.

The federal case also included charges against two other former Louisville police officers: Kelly Goodlett, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to falsify the warrant application, and Brett Hankison, who is accused of endangering the lives of Taylor, Walker and neighbors by using unconstitutional excessive force when he opened fire during the raid.

Hankinson's 2023 trial ended in a mistrial when the jury could not agree on the charges against him. Federal prosecutors said they plan to retry him starting in October.