Three grand jurors In Breonna Taylor’s case join petition to impeach Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron
Published 8:13 am Sunday, January 24, 2021
A national news network reports that three former grand jurors have joined a petition demanding the Kentucky Legislature impeach state Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
CNN reports that one of the attorneys representing the petitioners, Kevin Glogower, said the former grand jurors are among the “concerned Kentucky citizens” who have made the petition.
Glogower said in a statement that the grand jurors “were terribly misused by the most powerful law enforcement official in Kentucky.”
The petition’s allegations against Cameron include breach of public trust and failure to comply with his duties as the state’s chief law enforcement official. They do not accuse him of any crimes, but impeachment is not considered a criminal proceeding.
The charges are connected to a case involving Louisville Metropolitan Police Department officers who have been implicated but not charged in the death of Breonna Taylor in September.
The petition against Cameron, signed by a handful of Kentuckians, was submitted to the overwhelmingly Republican Kentucky House. Cameron is a close ally of U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and is seen as a rising GOP star.
Cameron took over the investigation into the shooting death of Taylor during a Louisville police raid last year. A grand jury did not indict any of the Louisville Metro Police officers involved in the raid on charges connected with Taylor’s death. Former detective Brett Hankison was indicted, however, on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree for allegedly firing blindly into an apartment next to Taylor’s. He has pleaded not guilty.
The petition is the latest in a flurry of tit-for-tat efforts to impeach Kentucky elected officials. Four Kentucky citizens recently petitioned the state House of Representatives to impeach Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for executive actions he took in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the matter was assigned to a House committee for review.
Beshear’s actions had been upheld by the state Supreme Court, and the governor says there are “zero grounds” for his removal.
Kentucky law requires impeachment petitions to be referred to a House committee but does not require any further action. Under the state’s constitution, the House possesses the sole power of impeachment. An impeachment trial is held in the state Senate, with a conviction requiring the support of two-thirds of the senators present.
Some of the grand jurors said they weren’t given the opportunity to consider homicide charges and at least one of the grand jurors said that Cameron’s public statements about the grand jury involved in the case have been misleading.