Breonna Taylor raid: Experts explain why felony charges against two former officers were dismissed

(CNN) – Four years after Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her home, a federal judge has dismissed felony charges against two former Louisville Metro Police Department detectives who worked on the search warrant in the forced-entry raid.Louisville detective Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany were federally charged in 2022 with submitting a false affidavit to search Taylor’s home ahead of the LMPD’s raid, then working together to create a “false cover story in an attempt to escape responsibility for their roles in preparing the warrant affidavit that contained false information,” according to court documents.But U.S. District Court Judge Charles Simpson ruled Thursday that the decision by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, to fire his gun when officers burst into the home was “the legal cause of Taylor’s death,” rather than warrantless entry, according to court documents.The dropped charges carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. Motions to dismiss other charges were denied and the two still face civil rights charges and could be sentenced to years in prison.Here’s why the judge made the decision and how CNN’s legal analysts interpret it.A federal judge has dismissed felony charges against two former Louisville Metro Police Department detectives, Joshua Jaynes, left,...