{"id":6502,"date":"2020-09-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=6502"},"modified":"2020-09-27T12:06:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-27T16:06:32","slug":"understanding-the-grand-jurys-decision-in-the-breonna-taylor-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/understanding-the-grand-jurys-decision-in-the-breonna-taylor-case\/","title":{"rendered":"UNDERSTANDING THE GRAND JURY\u2019S DECISION IN THE BREONNA TAYLOR CASE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I assume you\u2019re all familiar with this case in Louisville, Kentucky; if you\u2019re not, you can get a capsule <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shooting_of_Breonna_Taylor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"background here (opens in a new tab)\">background here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;The grand jury recently chose not to indict two officers who fired.&nbsp; A third officer was indicted&nbsp;on a recklessness theory&nbsp;for firing into a nearby apartment during the incident.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The public exploded. Demonstrations abounded, some of them turning into riots, and in the city where it happened two police officers were shot&nbsp;during the disturbances.&nbsp; Such is the price of not clearly explaining to the public how the law works.&nbsp; Part of the blame lies with the media, which created an&nbsp;overblown&nbsp;expectation that the cops whose bullets killed Breonna Taylor would be indicted.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The simple fact is, they weren\u2019t indicted for exactly the same reason the Ms. Taylor\u2019s boyfriend, who fired the first shot of the confrontation and in fact wounded and almost killed one of the officers, was not indicted for having done so.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The law essentially says, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be&nbsp;right,&nbsp;you have to be&nbsp;<em>reasonable.<\/em>\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prosecutors and investigators came to the conclusion that the boyfriend was sincere when he said he didn\u2019t hear police announce, and thought he and his girlfriend were in danger from criminals \u2013 very likely the same ex-boyfriend of Breonna, the man the police were hoping to gather evidence against \u2013 when he opened fire.&nbsp; Their conclusion said in essence, \u201cHe made a mistake of fact, but any reasonable person in his position might have made the same mistake under the circumstances, and therefore he should be held harmless.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;what\u2019s known as a finding of \u201cexcusable\u201d action.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cops who returned fire \u2013 including the officer who was hit by the boyfriend\u2019s bullet, which tore his femoral artery and came close to killing him \u2013 were apparently found to have acted in the reasonable belief that they were under murderous criminal gunfire which warranted their use of deadly force, in the eyes of the grand jury.&nbsp; Same reason: \u201cThey made a mistake of fact, but any reasonable person in their position might have made the same mistake under the circumstances, and therefore they should be held harmless.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My friend Andrew&nbsp;Branca, an attorney who specializes in defensive use of deadly force, has popularized a term for this sort of tragedy: \u201cAwful, but lawful.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The death of Breonna Taylor is certainly a tragedy. The grand jury\u2019s determination, however, is understandable in the eyes of the law.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I assume you\u2019re all familiar with this case in Louisville, Kentucky; if you\u2019re not, you can get a capsule background here.\u00a0 &nbsp;The grand jury recently chose not to indict two officers who fired.&nbsp; A third officer was indicted&nbsp;on a recklessness theory&nbsp;for firing into a nearby apartment during the incident.&nbsp; The public exploded. Demonstrations abounded, some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6504,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502\/revisions\/6504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}