Breonna Taylor's Life Mattered, Con't

In a highly unusual move, one of the grand jurors in the Breonna Taylor case has filed a lawsuit to release the grand jury transcript and recordings of proceedings. Daniel Cameron's office says it will comply.

 

A juror in the Breonna Taylor case contends that the Kentucky attorney general misrepresented the grand jury’s deliberations and failed to offer the panel the option of indicting the two officers who fatally shot the young woman, according to the juror’s lawyer.

The unnamed juror filed a court motion on Monday seeking the release of last week’s transcripts and permission from a judge to speak publicly to set the record straight. Hours later, the office of Attorney General Daniel Cameron granted both requests, saying that the juror is free to speak and that recordings of the session will be made public.

The grand jury did not indict the two white officers who killed Ms. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, after one officer was shot by her boyfriend. It charged a third officer whose bullets entered a neighbor’s apartment after missing Ms. Taylor with the lesser felony of wanton endangerment.

“This is something where the juror is not seeking any fame, any acclaim, any money,” said Kevin M. Glogower, the juror’s lawyer.

The lawyer said the juror came to him last week feeling anxious after Mr. Cameron repeatedly said at a news conference that the law did not permit him to charge Sgt. Jon Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor on March 13 — and that the jury had agreed with him.

“While there are six possible homicide charges under Kentucky law, these charges are not applicable to the facts before us because our investigation showed — and the grand jury agreed — that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in the return of deadly fire after having been fired upon,” Mr. Cameron said, one of several moments in the news conference where he emphasized such a consensus.

 

As I said yesterday, the evidence appears to support the theory that Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron lied when he told reporters that the 9mm bullet that hit Mattingly in the leg could not have been fired by any other gun than the one Taylor's boyfriend was using, as he had the only 9mm weapon present at the scene.

 

But the ballistics report says that Hankinson had been issued a 9mm Glock by the LMPD. It was the bullet that hit Mattingly that led to the officers returning fire, fearing for their lives.

If the bullet could have come from Hankinson's Glock 9mm however, and the grand jury was never told about it, well..Cameron is in a lot of trouble.

Gov. Beshear has called for the transcripts and recording of the grand jury proceedings, but if one of the grand jurors themselves is suing to make that happen, then Cameron is possibly in unbelievable amounts of trouble here. Prosecutorial misconduct is a thing, folks. The kind of thing that gets you disbarred.

Let's not forget that Beshear was Kentucky's previous Attorney General too. He knows what this means.

This case is far from over.

Breonna Taylor's life mattered.