Shaquille Taylor, 29, the alleged killer of Belmont University freshman Jillian Ludwig, who died on Thursday after being shot in the head while walking near campus on Tuesday, was released from Metro Nashville Davidson County Jail on September 23, after bonding out subsequent to his arrest on September 21 on felony auto theft charges.
A $10,000 bond was set by a Davidson County General Sessions Court judge when he was arraigned on those charges, and the company who posted the bond, Brooke’s Bail Bonding, told The Tennessee Star it was doubled when Taylor missed court on November 3. A clerk at the Davidson County Criminal Court told The Star on Thursday that records show Brooke’s Bail Bonding paid $10,000 to the court. Brooke’s Bail Bonding owner Brooke Harlan said her company was attempting to secure a new court date for Taylor at the time of his latest arrest.
The General Sessions Court set the low bond of $10,000 despite knowing of Taylor’s extensive criminal history that stretches back to 2010. The Office of the Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk told The Star it does not know which judge set the bond, citing the General Sessions Court’s high volume of cases. The office of that court’s clerk told The Star they only provide information about civil cases.
In August 2021, Taylor was charged with a felony for alleged aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the same Tennessee criminal court. The case against him on those charges continued until May 2023, when three doctors reportedly testified in Davidson County Criminal Court that Taylor was not competent to stand trial.
Following the competency hearing, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Angelita Dalton dismissed the case against him, as Tennessee and federal law prohibit criminal trials of those deemed mentally unfit.
Nashville District Attorney General Glenn Funk issued a statement to Nashville media on Tuesday addressing the May 2023 dismissal of the aggravated assault by a deadly weapon charges against Taylor, but offered no explanation for the low bond set for Taylor in the September 2023 felony auto theft charges.
WKRN reported Funk’s statement as follows:
On April 13, 2023, the Nashville District Attorney’s Office prosecuted Shaquille Taylor for Aggravated Assault with a deadly weapon.
At a competency hearing on that date, three court appointed doctors unanimously testified that Mr. Taylor was incompetent to stand trial. State and Federal law prohibit prosecution of persons found to be incompetent, so therefore Judge Angelita Dalton was mandated to dismiss the case.
Because the doctors did not find Mr. Taylor met the standards for involuntary commitment, he was released from custody on May 19, 2023.
Under Tennessee law, for a person to be involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, at least two doctors must have executed certificates that the person is suffering from a severe mental illness or developmental disability that causes the person to be a substantial risk of serious harm to himself or others. The doctors must also find that there are no other less restrictive measures than commitment.
This nearly impossible standard impacts public safety. The law must be altered to accurately balance individual needs with public safety. At the same time Tennessee must provide more beds and staffing resources to handle dangerous individuals.
I will continue to work with the Legislature on these serious mental health issues.
Earlier this week, WSMV reported that, “the district attorney’s office, along with a task force of agencies including the public defender’s office, have identified an estimated 229 accused criminals in Nashville who cannot be prosecuted for crimes because they have been deemed to be incompetent to stand trial. Charged often with misdemeanor crimes, they are examined by the Vanderbilt University Forensic Evaluation Team, and if found to be incompetent to stand trial, they cannot be prosecuted and are released.”
Dalton was elected to her position in 2018, and stated her desire to continue “administering justice” and “doing the right thing” in the role. After winning her initial primary by nearly 10 percentage points in 2018, Dalton did not face a Republican opponent. Since the 2018 election, Dalton has not faced a challenger from the Democratic Party or an opponent from the Republican Party.
A legal expert told The Star that recent bail “reforms” promoted by activists likely contributed to the General Sessions Court’s September decision to set Taylor’s bond at such a low level.
A criminal defense attorney with knowledge of Tennessee and Metro Nashville law told The Star this is not uncommon, and attributed Taylor’s ability to secure bail to a 2018 change sparked by a federal complaint filed by criminal justice reform advocates.
After the complaint was filed with the United States Office of Justice Programs (OJP) in 2018, Davidson County responded by changing its pretrial release policies to use “a race-neutral, risk-based system,” according to OJP, which determined it would officially close the complaint due to the changes.
Equal Justice Under Law, the group who filed the complaint, hailed the new system as “a great achievement for safeguarding individuals and for complying with civil rights obligations” in Davidson County in their 2018 press release.
After securing his release in September, police say Taylor missed his court appearance for the alleged carjacking on Friday, and an arrest warrant was filed for his failure to appear. His next contact with law enforcement came after Ludwig was shot.
Taylor’s bond for the auto theft felony charges was increased to $20,000 after he skipped his court date on November 3rd. Taylor is currently held on a $280,000 bail after he was arrested for allegedly shooting Jullian Ludwig.
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Shaquille Taylor” and “Jillian Ludwig” by Metro Nashville Police Department.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect Taylor’s bond amount stemming from his September 21st arrest as $10,000.
Nashville is NYC with thug mentality. Liberal mentality running and ruining Nashville!
It is high time judges are charged as accessories to a crime when they drop charges and someone commits a crime after they dropped charges. That would end this nonsense and political judges acting as social justice warriors getting innocents killed with their decisions.
Well stated Mr Bumpus!!
Why would anyone want to move to Nashville if this is how they conduct public safety?
No “tax holidays” or new stadiums until we have enough prisons and mental health facilities to accommodate enough dangerous individuals so people can live in this state and walk down a city street without fear. We are trying to get law and order on the cheap and it simply is not working.
“Taylor was charged with a felony for alleged aggravated assault with a deadly weapon…. three doctors (One of whom we will assume was Vanderbilt University Forensic Evaluation Team Director, Kimberly Brown) reportedly testified in Davidson County Criminal Court that Taylor was not competent to stand trial… Taylor also has a long criminal history, dating back to 2010, according to a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation background check obtained by WSMV4. The first charges back in 2010 include aggravated robbery and possession of a handgun; similar charges through Taylor’s record throughout the years up to this shooting including assault, robbery, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, vehicle theft and more. If this guy was not the poster child for posing a substantial risk I will eat my hat.
I do not live in Nashville. I live more than fifty miles away from downtown Nashville. But I know well the area where this shooting occurred. I myself have traveled through and visited this area countless times during my lifetime. Vanderbilt University and its medical center, visited by tens of thousands of Tennesseans from the entire Middle Tennessee region, is not that far away. This area is also near major shopping areas including the Green Hills area. Belmont University is now a major university in its own right. Both Vanderbilt University and Belmont University have first-rate law schools in this area.
It is clear as a bell to me that something major has gone very wrong in Metro Nashville government (i.e., in every way from its courts to its police to its schools, etc. et al.), just as it has in Memphis-Shelby County. (For example, I used to go to Memphis from time to time to see Minor League Baseball games there. But I have stopped doing that. I think it is now too dangerous to do that anymore.) It is also clear as a bell to me that the Marxist Democrats who now ‘manage’ (I use this word loosely) Metro Nashville will not properly deal with this problem. They either do not know what to do, or they are not willing to do what is required to deal with these problems. If something is not done soon, Nashville will become as dangerous as Memphis. Maybe it already is. No one wants that. I am certainly sympathetic to the law-abiding people of both cities who are trapped in, and find that they must now live in, lawless ‘gang banging combat zones’.
The Tennessee General Assembly MUST do something about this SOON. If that means reforming, revising, or even repealing, the Home Rule provisions of Tennessee’s Constitution which presently prevent the State of Tennessee (including its General Assembly) from exercising direct oversight and control of negligent or incompetent large populous cities like Metro Nashville or Memphis or any other large populous city, whenever the State thinks necessary for any reason, then so be it. The people of the Middle Tennessee region (or the West Tennessee region, or any Tennessee region for that matter) do not want to be held hostage to the out-of-control lawlessness of the State’s large cities. In my opinion, this is a task that must be dealt with immediately when the General Assembly returns to the Capitol in January 2024.
Enter Nashville at your own risk.