A federal judge dismissed charges against two former Louisville police officers accused of falsifying parts of a warrant used to enter Breonna Taylor’s apartment the night officers shot and killed her, according to the court order. U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson issued a one-page ruling Friday throwing out the charges against Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany, who were among the officers accused of helping craft the warrant.
Prosecutors had asked the court last week to dismiss the case “in the interest of justice,” and they pointed to earlier steps in the proceedings in which some felony charges against Jaynes and Meany had already been removed. The dismissal ends the remaining federal charges tied to allegations that the warrant contained false or misleading statements, including statements prosecutors said were included in the warrant affidavit used to obtain the entry.
The federal case stemmed from the 2020 death of Taylor, 26, whose killing along with the death of George Floyd in Minnesota sparked weeks of racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. According to the court-described account, officers broke down Taylor’s front door with a battering ram, and Taylor’s boyfriend fired one shot at police; police returned fire and struck Taylor multiple times in her hallway.
The AP account describes the warrant’s underlying allegation that Taylor was receiving packages for a suspected drug dealer and her former boyfriend. The warrant said Jaynes had confirmed with the postal service that the packages for the ex-boyfriend were going to Taylor’s apartment, but investigators later learned that Jaynes had not confirmed that information with the postal inspector.
Garland announced the federal charges in 2022 in a high-profile news conference in Louisville, where he said Breonna Taylor “should still be alive today.” Garland said the officers at the scene who shot Taylor were unaware of the “false and misleading statements” in the warrant, while federal prosecutors pursued charges against the officers they said helped put those statements into the warrant process.
Jaynes and Meany had both faced consequences from their time in Louisville police. Jaynes was fired by the Louisville Police Department in 2021 for being untruthful about the warrant, while Meany was fired after he was charged in 2022.
The dismissal by Simpson resolves the federal charges against Jaynes and Meany in the case as described in the AP report, after prosecutors sought to close out the remaining counts and the court issued the short ruling.