Judge delays release of Breonna Taylor grand jury recording until Friday

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (NewsNation Now) — A judge has granted Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s request for an extension to release a grand jury recording in the Breonna Taylor case.

According to a court order by Jefferson Circuit Judge Ann Bailey Smith, the new deadline for the recording release is now set for Friday at 12 p.m. ET.

Stew Matthews, the attorney representing former officer Brett Hankison, confirmed earlier Wednesday to NewsNation that the recordings are not expected until Friday at noon.

The proceedings were scheduled to be released Wednesday. The Attorney General’s office released the following statement:

“The Grand Jury audio recording is more than 20 hours long, and our office filed a motion to request additional time, if the court permits it, to redact personally identifiable information of witnesses, including addresses and phone numbers.  The Judge is expected to rule on the motion today.”

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE

Attorney General Daniel Cameron has acknowledged that he never recommended homicide charges against any of the police officers who conducted the raid that led to Taylor’s death.

Cameron said Monday that wanton endangerment was the only charge he recommended to the grand jury, whose deliberations haven’t yet been publicly released.

Cameron said he would comply with a judge’s order after a member of the grand jury sued to have the record opened to the public. A court will release the recordings on Wednesday.

Last week, the grand jury indicted one of three white police officers for wanton endangerment in the case. Former Officer Brett Hankison faces three counts for firing bullets that entered the home of Taylor’s neighbors. With none of the officers indicted in the killing of Taylor, the decision sparked outrage and protests across the country.

Taylor, a Black emergency medical technician and aspiring nurse, was struck by six bullets after officers knocked down her door to serve a narcotics warrant on March 13, killing the 26-year-old in front of her boyfriend.

In a TV interview Tuesday evening, Cameron also indicated that he had recommended no charges against the other officers, Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove.

Speaking to WDRB-TV in Louisville, he remarked of the grand jury, “They’re an independent body. If they wanted to make an assessment about different charges, they could have done that. But our recommendation was that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their acts and their conduct.”

A judge ordered the public release of the grand jury proceedings during Hankison’s arraignment Monday, where he pleaded not guilty.

Cameron said the grand jury is meant to be a “secretive body,” but “it’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen.”

The attorney general said a record of the proceedings would be released Wednesday, and that the public “will see that over the course of two-and-a-half days, our team presented a thorough and complete case to the grand jury.”

Taylor’s family has called for transparency in the decision.

“Since the grand jury decision was announced, we’ve been saying that Daniel Cameron clearly failed to present a comprehensive case that supported justice for Breonna,” Ben Crump, an attorney for Taylor’s family, said in a news release Tuesday.