Kentucky’s Attorney General Daniel Cameron agreed to release recordings, made during grand jury proceedings in the Breonna Taylor case after a former juror complained that “certain questions were left unanswered” and suggested that information presented to the grand jury was different from what Cameron presented to the public.
Attorneys for the anonymous juror who, on Monday, filed a motion to force Cameron to release the recordings, said that their client was left “aggrieved” by the grand jury process and believes that, in the interest of “accountability and a sense of public trust,” recordings should be made available to the general public.
The juror also filed a motion requesting to speak freely “without fear of prosecution, persecution, condemnation, torment, etc.” according to a Fox News report.
My client is ‘aggrieved,’ to use that term, that what was presented is not being publicly disclosed,” the attorney said in a conference Monday. “Our client felt compelled to take action, but before our client could discuss things freely, they needed to know what the rights and duties as deemed by the court. This is not a situation or a case where anyone should be acting without an abundance of caution and exploring all their options abundantly before they begin speaking freely with the press.”
“My client wants to make sure the truth gets out. My client wants to make sure anything that happened in there becomes something of public knowledge,” he continued.
Although the attorney did not say, specifically, what “aggrieved” the juror, additional reports seem to indicate that the juror believes they were not given the opportunity to fully consider charges against the other two officers in the case, one of whom fired the shot that ultimately killed Breonna Taylor. Those two officers, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, were determined to have been “justified in their use of force,” according to the Attorney General’s office, so the office did not present jurors with possible charges.
A Louisville, Kentucky, judge agreed and pressed the Attorney General to make the recordings public no later than Wednesday, the Louisville Courier-Journal adds.
Cameron was the most reticent, noting in a court filing that releasing the grand jury recordings “could compromise the ongoing federal investigation and could have unintended consequences such as poisoning the jury pool,” in the event the federal government decides to pursue a case against the three involved officers or the Louisville Police Department.
“We have no concerns with grand jurors sharing their thoughts on our presentation because we are confident in the case we presented. Once the public listens to the recording, they will see that over the course of two-and-a-half days, our team presented a thorough and complete case to the grand jury,” the attorney general said in a statement to media.
“Our prosecutors presented all of the evidence, even though the evidence supported that Sgt. Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by Kenneth Walker. For that reason, the only charge recommended was wanton endangerment,” Cameron added.