Judge dismisses charges against former officers in Breonna Taylor case
Judge dismisses charges against former officers in Breonna Taylor case
Monroe Trombly and Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY NETWORKSun, March 29, 2026 at 10:01 PM UTC
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LOUISVILLE, KY — A federal judge has dismissed all remaining charges against two former Louisville police officers accused of providing false information on a no-knock search warrant that led to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020.
U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson signed an order on Friday, March 27, dismissing the charges against Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany with prejudice, meaning federal prosecutors cannot bring the same charges against them again using the same evidence. Both Jaynes and Meany were involved in drafting the search warrant used in the botched raid that killed Taylor, 26, in March 2020.
The dismissal came a week after federal prosecutors asked Simpson to dismiss the charges "in the interest of justice." It was an expected yet notable development in the federal case against the former Louisville police officers, which began in 2022.
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice has tried to pause or drop many civil rights cases started under the previous administration. Though Meany and Jaynes were not present during the shooting, both were accused by federal prosecutors of neglecting necessary steps to obtain the warrant for Taylor's apartment.
Meany was accused of knowingly providing false, misleading, and outdated information, while Jaynes was accused of supplying false information to secure the warrant.
The Louisville Metro Police Department fired Jaynes in 2021 for policy violations and dismissed Meany in August 2022 following his federal indictment.
Thomas Clay, Jaynes' lawyer, said the Department of Justice "has finally done what it should have done long ago" and that he was happy for Jaynes and his family. Michael Denbow, who represents Meany, said that his client is "overjoyed and incredibly relieved" now that the case has been dismissed.
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Case against former Louisville police officers weakened by previous ruling
As it stood, the case against Jaynes and Meany had already been weakened. Last year, Simpson — an 80-year-old Reagan appointee — dismissed the most serious charges after ruling that the government could not prove Meany and Jayne’s actions had directly caused Taylor's death.
Two other Louisville police officers, Brett Hankison and Kelly Goodlett, were also charged by federal prosecutors in 2022 in connection with the no-knock raid. Hankison is currently free on bond while he appeals a conviction for violating Taylor’s civil rights, which resulted in a 33-month sentence. During the raid, he fired 10 shots through a covered sliding glass door and window, with some rounds entering a neighboring apartment.
The 33-month sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, despite the Department of Justice's request of just one day. Hankison promptly sought his release, but Jennings denied the request.
He was then released in December 2025 after about two months of incarceration, when a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 that the former officer was not a flight risk or a danger to the community and that he had raised "compelling concerns" regarding his safety in federal custody. In that case, the Department of Justice also intervened on Hankison’s behalf and sought his release.
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Goodlett, the fourth Louisville police officer, pleaded guilty in 2022 to helping falsify an affidavit for the warrant for Taylor’s apartment. She has not yet been sentenced.
Civil rights advocates: Dismissal of charges 'another troubling sign'
U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, who represents Louisville, sent a letter on March 27 to Attorney General Pam Bondi in the wake of the dismissal, asking the Department of Justice to "stop interfering with and undermining Louisville’s efforts to deliver justice for Miss Taylor’s family and atone for her death as a community."
"The DOJ’s decision to walk away from this case and their argument that it is somehow ‘in the interest of justice’ is insulting given the Trump administration’s persistent undermining of police and justice reform efforts here in Louisville and its utter abandonment of any kind of civil rights enforcement nationwide,"McGarvey wrote to Bondi.
In a statement, the NAACP Louisville Branch described the dismissal as "another troubling sign" that the current leadership of the Department of Justice "does not value accountability when Black lives are taken."
"Justice delayed has now become justice denied," the civil rights organization said in the statement. "This decision sends a dangerous message that those who abuse their authority and manipulate the system will not be held accountable."
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What happened to Breonna Taylor?
Taylor, an emergency room technician, was inside her apartment when she was fatally shot by plainclothes officers at around 12:40 a.m. local time on March 13, 2020, during a narcotics investigation. Officers, who said they knocked and announced themselves several times before forcibly entering, had been trying to serve a no-knock search warrant.
Neither Taylor nor Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend at the time, was the target of the investigation, and no drugs were found in the home. Walker and several neighbors also said they did not hear the officers identify themselves as law enforcement.
As police entered the apartment, Walker shot an officer in the leg. He later said he believed the officers were intruders.
Taylor's death sparked months of protests in Louisville and around the country. In December 2024, the Louisville Metro Police Department and the city's government reached an agreement on civil rights reforms with the Department of Justice. But the plan was delayed by a lack of approval from a federal judge, and federal prosecutors announced in May 2025 that they would abandon negotiations.
Contributing: N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; Josh Wood, Louisville Courier Journal
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Federal judge ends case against officers tied to Breonna Taylor raid
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