Former WA AG: Releasing Breonna Taylor grand jury transcripts unprecedented
Oct 5, 2020, 12:20 PM
Candles and flowers left outside the federal courthouse in Seattle Wednesday night. (KIRO 7 TV photographer Mike Griffith)
(KIRO 7 TV photographer Mike Griffith)
The grand jury examining the Breonna Taylor case filed no criminal charges against the two officers whose bullets killed Taylor, which set off a whole new round of demonstrations. Now the grand jury transcripts are going to be released, but aren’t they supposed to be a secret? Former state Attorney General Rob McKenna joined Seattle’s Morning News to discuss.
“They absolutely are supposed to be a secret and one Kentucky prosecutor who was quoted said that he’s never heard of this happening before, where the transcripts from a grand jury in inquiry would be released. So it seems to be unprecedented. Grand juries are not the same as trial juries. Grand juries exist to help prosecutors decide whether to file charges against the suspect in a crime,” he said.
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“Typically, they listen closely to the grand jury to decide whether or not to prosecute someone. It’s not a trial, there’s no judge present. The jury will sit in a kind of lecture hall similar room, and the prosecutor will present all the evidence, they could bring in witnesses,” McKenna explained. “Then the jury will decide whether or not to issue an indictment. It doesn’t have to be unanimous. Grand juries can have anywhere from 12 to 23 people on them, and usually a super majority of the grand jury has to agree on an indictment to make that recommendation.”
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In this case, we are finding out that the grand jury was given limited options by the attorney general who was running this case and that he didn’t bring up the option of charging the officers who fired the fatal shots.
“The prosecutor has to decide what felonies they may pursue and they want to test the evidence for potential felonies with the jury,” McKenna said. “But they have to make the initial decision of what might be prosecuted, and then try that out with the grand jury, so that’s the way this process works in the federal system and in state systems as well.”
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