By: Andrea Yan
Last week, new evidence surfaced that shows that Detective Joshua Jaynes lied to obtain a search warrant that led to the wrongful death of Breonna Taylor.
Taylor’s case is not uncommon. Joseph Patituce, defense lawyer and former prosecutor in Ohio, says “[i]t happens far more than people think. We are talking about a document that allows police to come into the homes of people, oftentimes minorities, at all times of night and day.”
When obtaining a search warrant, the detective claimed that Taylor’s boyfriend had packages delivered to her apartment, and Jaynes suspected that those packages contained drugs. He also claimed to have proof from a postal inspector. He asked the judge for a warrant to search her home at night for a specific reason: so that drug dealers couldn’t hide the evidence or flee.
However, the new evidence shows that Detective Jaynes lied. Prosecutors claim that the detective never confirmed the package deliveries with a postal inspector, and even said Jaynes and a colleague made up a story to tell the authorities to cover up the false statements he made to obtain the search warrant for Taylor’s home. The detective pleaded not guilty to his charges claiming that he had used information obtained from other colleagues.
There have been multiple cases throughout the country of the same scenario: the police lying to obtain a search warrant. In cases in Houston and Atlanta, police officers accused someone of buying drugs at a house, which turned out to be false and not substantiated with evidence. In a case in Baltimore, a detective lied about finding drugs in a truck in order to obtain a search warrant for a motel room.
Ed Davis, former Boston police commissioner, says “[i]t’s tragic when you see police falsify information to obtain a search warrant, and it is also dumb. Every one of those search warrants can turn into a disaster.” His point is illustrated in the Breonna Taylor case.
This issue is fixable. Oftentimes, judges only rely on evidence from police officers to grant a search warrant. This means that law enforcement officers are given power to target innocent people without being questioned. If this system is fixed, the number of wrongfully granted search warrants will decrease dramatically and save innocent lives.
Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/06/us/breonna-taylor-police-search-warrants.html