Exactly. The fuck.

Judge was appointed by Reagan

I think the opinion (as bad as it is) is that if the warrant was good the judge thinks the exact same thing would have happened. So the fact that these assholes knowingly lied to get the warrant isn’t a “direct link”.

To me making that argument kind of signals that no-knock warrants shouldn’t be a thing at all if you accept that an innocent would die either way because it’s so fucked up…and on top of that the cops still clearly caused this by lying because this isn’t a case of good warrant vs bad warrant - this is a case of bad warrant vs no warrant and Breonna still being alive.

I think the legal principle here is that of a superseding cause. The case law on this matter is really complex and I, as someone who is NOT a lawyer, cannot comment on the merit of the judge’s decision. However, the case described in that Wikipedia article is illustrative:

if a defendant had carelessly spilled gasoline near a pile of cigarette butts in an alley behind a bar, the fact that a bar patron later carelessly threw a cigarette butt into the gasoline would be deemed a foreseeable intervening cause, and would not absolve the defendant of tort liability. However, if the bar patron intentionally threw the cigarette butt into the gasoline because he wanted to see it ignite, this intentional act would likely be deemed unforeseeable, and therefore superseding.