The Kentucky Supreme Court has struck down Lexington’s ban on no-knock warrants, raising questions about the future of Louisville’s own ordinance, which was passed unanimously by Metro Council in response to the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor.
In a 4-2 decision, Justice Robert Conley wrote for the majority, saying that Lexington’s local law conflicts with Senate Bill 4, a statewide measure passed in 2021 that regulates, but does not prohibit, the use of no-knock warrants.
Conley likened the legal conflict to a two-way street: While local governments may add safeguards beyond what the state mandates, he said, they “cannot close the street entirely.”
“Applying this test, SB 4 controls and the ordinance is void,” Conley wrote in the ruling issued on Sept. 18.
Justices Michelle Keller and Angela Bisig dissented from the majority’s decision, which reversed a ruling from the lower Court of Appeals that found Lexington’s ban was lawful. Justice Pamela Goodwine did not participate in the case.
It remains unclear how the ruling might impact Louisville’s no-knock warrant ban, which has been in place since 2020. However, city officials said they have no plans to make changes at this time.
Matt Mudd, a spokesperson for Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, said while the mayor’s office is aware of the ruling, “Louisville’s ordinance has not been struck down. Lexington and Louisville have different ordinances, so LMPD will continue following our ban on no-knock warrants.”
In a statement, a Louisville Metro Police spokesperson said: “While this is a new ruling and we are yet to fully understand how it effects the Louisville Metro Council ordinance regulating ‘no-knock’ warrants, the Louisville Metro Police Department has no intention of making policy changes. Many of our policies are more stringent than law. We will continue to review this ruling in consultation with our legal team.”
Jefferson County Attorney’s Office spokesperson Josh Abner said the office is reviewing the Supreme Court decision and will provide that review to Metro Government upon its completion. He added that the suit on which the Supreme Court ruled did not challenge Louisville’s no-knock ban.
However, University of Louisville law professor Ariana Levinson told the The Courier Journal the ruling will likely impact Louisville’s own no-knock ordinance.
She said Louisville’s ordinance “would stand until someone challenges it” — but that if the ordinance was challenged, it would likely meet a similar fate thanks to the Supreme Court decision.
“It makes another hurdle for police reform,” Levinson said.
No-knock warrants permit officers to serve a warrant without knocking or announcing themselves. Louisville’s Metro Council unanimously passed its ban against them on June 11, 2020, less than four months after Taylor’s death and just weeks after mass protests erupted in the city.
Taylor was killed during a botched raid as Louisville Metro Police officers served a no-knock warrant on her apartment on March 13, 2020. However, officers have maintained they knocked and announced despite securing a no-knock warrant. In Lexington, city leaders enacted their own ban in 2021, shortly after Senate Bill 4 became effective.
That state law limits no-knock warrants to cases where there is “clear and convincing evidence” that the person inside has committed or is suspected of a violent crime, and that there is a danger to life or a risk of evidence destruction. The law also prohibits no-knock warrants from being served anytime between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., except in certain circumstances.
Lexington’s police union sued, claiming that the city had failed to consult with the organization about the local law change.
In his ruling, Conley chose not to decide if the city violated collective bargaining rules and instead based the majority’s decision on the apparent conflict between state law and local ordinance.
“The ordinance prohibits what the statute allows, it makes illegal what the statute declares is legal, and therefore contravenes the public policy of the Commonwealth,” Conley wrote.
In her dissent, Keller argued that the majority’s two-way street analogy was flawed.“The question is not, ‘Does compliance with SB 4 constitute a violation of the Ordinance?’. Instead, it must be posed in the alternative, ‘Does compliance with the Ordinance constitute a violation of SB 4?’. To hold otherwise constitutes an intrusion on the broad authority vested in local governments under the “Home Rule.”
Keller said that Lexington’s city officials violated the police department’s collective bargaining agreement when they declined to participate in grievance procedures after the ordinance was passed, and that the union matter should be sent back to the trial court.
Louisville’s police union, the River City Fraternal Order of Police, did not respond to inquiries from The Courier Journal about the Supreme Court decision and whether they plan to challenge Louisville’s ordinance.
In a separate argument, Keller noted that by the time Senate Bill 4 was enacted, Louisville’s ban had already been in effect for months, and the bill did not contain any language invalidating Louisville’s ordinance.“The General Assembly’s silence on this matter evinces a clear intention to permit further regulation by municipalities, and I therefore hold that the Ordinance is not preempted by state legislation,” Keller said.
Monroe Trombly covers public safety. He can be reached at mtrombly@gannett.com.
Josh Wood is an investigative reporter who focuses on public safety and government. He can be reached at jwood@courier-journal.com or on X at @JWoodJourno.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Lexington no-knock ban Supreme Court decision Louisville