LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Breonna Taylor's family is "devastated" by a federal judge's recent ruling to dismiss some of the most serious charges against two Louisville Metro Police officers, according to the family's attorney.
Attorney Lonita Baker said Taylor's family disagrees with the decision and federal prosecutors assigned to the case plan to appeal the ruling.
“The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient," Tamika Palmer, Taylor's mother, added in a statement. "The appeal will extend the life of the case but as we’ve always maintained, we will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor.”
In a new ruling on Thursday, a federal judge dismissed two felony charges against Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany.
The two former LMPD officers are accused of falsifying information used to obtain the search warrant that led to the deadly raid at Taylor's apartment in March 2020. Federal judge Charles Simpson said the warrant wasn't the cause of Taylor's death.
Both Meany and Jaynes are still facing several other federal charges, which hold penalties of up to 12 months in prison.
The charges that were dismissed carried a potential sentence of life in prison.
"You wonder, where's the accountability?" Sadiqa Reynolds, a Louisville social justice activist, said. "What is in place to prevent an officer from making up a warrant and causing someone's death, what do we do?"
However, Jaynes' attorney Thomas Clay said the judge's decision was correct, adding that his client had to ask multiple judges to review the warrant before it was executed.
"They all agree, it was what he called 'air tight,'" Clay told WHAS11. "There are a lot of things that have been misstated that are false and we have great hope that we can go to trial and expose the untruths that have been told about this case,"
In a statement, LMPD said it "respects the judicial process" and will "accept the ultimate outcome" in the case.
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