Cameron appoints task force to study search warrants months after Breonna Taylor death
The death of Breonna Taylor last March in Louisville focused on how courts and police use search warrants. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron now wants a “top-to-bottom” review of Kentucky’s search warrant process.
Cameron announced Thursday that he is forming a task force to examine the process for securing, reviewing, and executing search warrants in Kentucky.
Cameron pledged to take the action last year after the death of Taylor. She was a 26-year-old Black woman who was fatally sot in her Louisville apartment last March 13 when three white plainclothes officers with a search warrant forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing operations.
“We made a promise to Kentuckians that questions and concerns raised about search warrants would be thoroughly considered, and today we’re delivering on that promise by launching the Search Warrant Task Force,” said Cameron in a news release.
“We’ve assembled a group representing every aspect of the search warrant process to conduct a top-to-bottom review and provide recommendations,” he said. “Our goal is to establish Kentucky as a national model for how search warrants should be pursued and executed.”
He said the task force will be asked to to consider law enforcement’s role in advancing public safety along with the personal protections guaranteed to citizens by the Constitutions of the United States and the commonwealth. It is expected to end its work by the end of this year.
One of the biggest controversies surrounding search warrants is those involving no-knock warrants. Issued by judges, they allow law enforcement to enter a property without immediate prior notification of the residents, such as by knocking on the door. A no-knock warrant was issued in the Breonna Taylor case.
State Rep. Attica Scott, D-Louisville, has filed legislation in this year’s General Assembly to ban no-knock warrants. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, also has filed legislation to require federal law-enforcement officers to give notice of their authority and purpose before entering a residence. It also would ban the use of such warrants by state and local law enforcement agencies that receive federal dollars.
Cameron’s special panel will be chaired by his office and will consist of the following members: two representatives of the Kentucky Court of Justice appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr.; the chairs of the legislature’s judiciary committees; a person appointed by the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police of Kentucky; one appointed by the Kentucky Sheriff’s Association; one appointed by the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police; the state police commissioner or a designee; a person appointed by the Kentucky Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ Association; a person appointed by the Kentucky County Attorney’s Association; the state public advocate or a designee; a person appointed by the Kentucky League of Cities; one appointed by Kentucky Association of Counties; one appointed by the Kentucky Conference of the NAACP; the commissioner or designee of the state Department of Criminal Justice Training; and three citizens appointed at large by the attorney general.
Cameron has asked each organization on the task force to submit names of those who will serve on it to him no later than Feb. 5.
He said the task force will convene as often as necessary to examine the search warrant process, solicit public input and develop recommendations. Meetings will be accessible to the public, consistent with current COVID-19 health guidelines. The first meeting of the task force will be set soon, he said.
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 4:12 PM.
