Judge tosses Georgia police officer’s indictment in McDonald’s shooting

Superior Court Judge Connie L. Williford of the Macon Judicial Circuit, in quashing the indictment for “a host of irregularities,” ruled in favor of Carroll’s lawyers, who also argued that a court reporter tasked with transcribing the grand jury proceeding had not been sworn in.

“This is one of those rare cases in which the Defendant has shown prejudice from the State’s misconduct and in which such misconduct either substantially influenced the grand jury’s decision or, at a minimum, there is (grave) doubt that its decision was free from such substantial influence,” Williford wrote in her order.

Even so, Carroll, 33, could be reindicted. His attorneys declined to comment.

In a written statement sent to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday evening, Howard said her office will present the case to another grand jury.

“While we respect the court, we fundamentally disagree with several aspects of this ruling,” Howard said.

Howard said the DA’s office is obligated to answer questions from grand jurors, including those related to sentencing. She added courthouse security cameras have been in local grand jury rooms for more than a decade, dating back to before her administration, and that they do not compromise confidentiality.

Carroll’s indictment came unexpectedly last September, after no known public outcry and no indication from authorities that his use of deadly force might have been improper.

Body camera footage of the shooting reviewed last fall by the AJC shows the officer pulling into the parking lot of a McDonald’s about a dozen miles south of Macon.

Carroll had been on the lookout for a 2018 Volkswagen Atlas reported stolen from the Atlanta area.

The officer, upon seeing the SUV with a license plate that matched one sent to him by dispatchers moments earlier, pulled up and stopped a car length or so behind the SUV, which was parked on the side of the restaurant.

After a Gainesville man, Kory M. Karpich, was seen getting behind the wheel, Carroll ordered him to get out. When he didn’t, Carroll busted the SUV’s driver’s side window with what appeared to be a baton.

Later, the SUV squealed its tires and lurched forward. It banged over a curb and into the side of the McDonald’s before reversing course. It surged backward and clipped Carroll’s cruiser, which was parked behind it.

Carroll yelled, “Stop!” Over the course of about three seconds, Carroll fired nine shots into the SUV’s windshield. Karpich, alone in the SUV, was wounded in the gunfire but not critically, the GBI has said.

About six seconds later, as the SUV fled in reverse across the parking lot near the drive-thru line and away from the officer, Carroll fired a 10th shot at the SUV.

According to the GBI, Karpich, 37, then led police on a chase into neighboring Bibb County, where he crashed. He was jailed in Peach County on methamphetamine-possession charges and for other alleged crimes that include fleeing and eluding police, obstruction and theft. The status of the case against Karpich was not immediately known Wednesday.

His name was not mentioned in Williford’s 15-page ruling, which outlined the basis for her decision to toss the indictment.

Williford said Howard acted “inappropriately” by telling grand jurors that Carroll could end up serving much less than the 20-year penalty for aggravated assault if they recommended indicting him.

“Any uneasiness the grand jurors might have felt about indicting a police officer would have been alleviated by the State’s suggestion that it might agree to a substantially lighter sentence,” Williford wrote.

Howard, in her statement, said the ruling “appears to reflect a misunderstanding of the distinct differences between trial juries and grand juries, their respective procedures, and the District Attorney’s role in the grand jury process.”

Williford added that prosecutors “failed to protect … the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings.” There was no audio captured but the goings-on in the room were visible, the judge wrote, to “security personnel and possibly others in the area.”

The judge added that, based on a review of grand jury transcripts, “the prosecutor completely omits” language in a use-of-deadly-force law allowing deadly force “‘when the officer reasonably believes that the suspect poses an immediate threat of physical violence to the officer or others.’”

Williford’s ruling states that Carroll, in his testimony to jurors, “repeatedly stated that he was primarily afraid for the safety of others nearby when he used deadly force.”