Felony charges dismissed against ex-officers charged in Breonna Taylor raid
Former police officers Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany were previously charged by federal prosecutors in Taylor's death.
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Judge Simpson said that "there is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor's death."
What?! How does that make any sense? If the cops didn’t illegally enter her apartment without a warrant, Breonna would still be alive today. Cause meet effect. How is that not a direct link?
Exactly. The fuck.
Judge was appointed by Reagan
Ol' Rotten Ronnie fucking the world from beyond the grave.
Yet again.
Well . . .
I think the opinion (as bad as it is) is that if the warrant was good the judge thinks the exact same thing would have happened. So the fact that these assholes knowingly lied to get the warrant isn't a "direct link".
To me making that argument kind of signals that no-knock warrants shouldn't be a thing at all if you accept that an innocent would die either way because it's so fucked up....and on top of that the cops still clearly caused this by lying because this isn't a case of good warrant vs bad warrant - this is a case of bad warrant vs no warrant and Breonna still being alive.
I think the legal principle here is that of a superseding cause. The case law on this matter is really complex and I, as someone who is NOT a lawyer, cannot comment on the merit of the judge's decision. However, the case described in that Wikipedia article is illustrative:
if a defendant had carelessly spilled gasoline near a pile of cigarette butts in an alley behind a bar, the fact that a bar patron later carelessly threw a cigarette butt into the gasoline would be deemed a foreseeable intervening cause, and would not absolve the defendant of tort liability. However, if the bar patron intentionally threw the cigarette butt into the gasoline because he wanted to see it ignite, this intentional act would likely be deemed unforeseeable, and therefore superseding.
The case law on this matter is really complex and I, as someone who is NOT a lawyer, cannot comment on the merit of the judge’s decision.
What are you talking about? Of course you can! Any reasonable person can see that this decision is bullshit, nuances of superseding cause be damned.
Wow that hurt my head. I read the rest of the Wikipedia page and I think I understand, but damn, I’ll need to read the judge’s full opinion to see just how creatively he applied that principle. Tort law is not for me.
Tort law is essentially legal sorcery
Sounds like that only reduces it to wilful negligence, not malice. There's still significant liability there.
Also, I'm pretty sure we're talking about the officers that wrote up the warrant request, not the ones actually on scene who did the shooting.