The Kentucky governor is demanding the release of all records related to the Breonna Taylor case.
After Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced the grand jury’s failure to charge involved officers with killing Taylor, one of the jurors asked for permission to speak publicly about what occurred during the proceedings. Earlier this week, Judge Annie O’Connell granted the request, extending the right to all the grand jurors in the case.
“The grand jury was not presented any charges other than the three wanton endangerment charges against Detective Hankison,” the juror began. “The grand jury did not have homicide offenses explained to them. The grand jury never heard anything about those laws. Self-defense or justification was never explained either. Questions were asked about additional charges, and the grand jury was told there would be none because the prosecutors didn’t feel they could make them stick.”
A second juror also made the same claims.
Following the jurors’ accounts, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued a statement asking for all information in the Taylor case to be made public. “The current situation raises serious concerns as multiple grand jurors are now claiming Attorney General Cameron has not been truthful to the public about what occurred in the grand jury process,” he said. “I trust Kentuckians with the truth, and the next step should be to release all information, evidence, grand jury conversations, recorded or not — everything.”
Cameron has already released 15 hours of audio recordings from the grand jury’s deliberations. He has since filed a joint motion with Detective Brett Hankinson’s attorney to ask that the evidence is kept sealed, arguing it can “permanently taint potential jurors” and “serve as an impetus” for them to receive more threats from the public. “Redaction of personal identifiers does not remedy the problem,” the motion said.