Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by police while in her own bed after they executed a warrant on the wrong house.
A former Louisville police officer convicted of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights during a police raid in which she was killed was sentenced on Tuesday to 33 months in prison, a ruling that came after the Trump administration said last week that the case should not have been prosecuted.
US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings issued her decision during a sentencing hearing attended by Brett Hankison’s defence lawyers and members of Taylor’s family, who had demanded a long jail sentence. Hankison will face three years of supervised release after serving his sentence, the judge said.
The sentence came despite the Justice Department’s unusual request in a court filing last week recommending that Hankison be sentenced to one day in jail for his role in the March 2020 police raid at Taylor’s apartment in which she was fatally shot.
He faced up to life in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.
After the sentencing, Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, and the family’s attorneys told reporters outside the courthouse that federal prosecutors argued more vociferously on behalf of Hankison during the hearing than they did on Taylor’s behalf.
The Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation memo last week, which suggested Hankison should not have been charged with federal crimes, marked a stunning about-face. Prosecutors during the Biden administration had used significant resources to prosecute Hankison, retrying the case after the first federal trial ended in a hung jury.
A jury found him guilty in November of violating Taylor’s civil rights. Hankison was acquitted on a second count of violating the rights of three people in a neighbouring apartment.
“It was like a George Orwell story in there,” said Ben Crump, one of the family’s attorneys. “Never in my career as a lawyer have I heard the prosecutor argue so adamantly for a convicted felon who had been convicted by a jury who heard all the evidence. The judge talked about how she was troubled. She agreed … that it seemed to be a 180-degree, about-face in the courtroom.”
Palmer criticised the Justice Department, saying: “The judge did the best she could with what she had to work with. There was no prosecution in there for us. There was no prosecution in there for Breonna. … Brett had his own defence team - I didn’t know he needed another one.”
The Justice Department and Hankison’s lawyers did not comment publicly after the sentencing.
Hankison’s case has been closely watched by civil rights activists who have pressed for police accountability for Taylor’s death, which helped spark mass social justice protests that year. Hankison, who is white, fired 10 shots through Taylor’s apartment window and door, none of which struck Taylor, who was black. He is the only officer directly involved in the raid who has been convicted on criminal charges.
During the sentencing hearing on Tuesday, small groups of protesters gathered outside the courthouse and several protesters were arrested after appearing to try to block traffic, according to news reports. Among them was Bianca Austin, Taylor’s aunt.
The hearing lasted nearly five hours, as the judge reviewed victim impact statements before announcing her sentencing decision.
Breaking with protocol, the Justice Department’s sentencing memo last week was not signed by any career prosecutors but by Robert J. Keenan, a senior counsel to the civil rights division who was not part of the original prosecution team, and Harmeet K. Dhillon, the head of the division, who was appointed under the Trump administration.
“Although he was part of the team executing the warrant, Defendant Hankison did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death,” the memo says. “Defendant Hankison did not wound her or anyone else at the scene that day, although he did discharge his duty weapon 10 times blindly into Ms. Taylor’s home.”
Jennings was appointed to the federal bench by US President Donald Trump in 2018.
Taylor’s death came weeks before the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 and helped ignite nationwide protests seeking greater police accountability over the use of excessive force against black people.
Civil rights activists said the federal sentencing memo in the Hankison case was the latest sign that the Justice Department under Trump is abandoning Biden-era efforts to reform police conduct across the country.
Nearly two months ago, the Justice Department moved to drop police reform agreements it had negotiated with Louisville and Minneapolis during the Biden administration. Those consent decrees came after sweeping, years-long federal investigations in both cities found their respective police departments had engaged in the systemic use of excessive force and racial discrimination.
On the night Taylor was killed, Hankison was among seven officers serving a warrant in a drug investigation of a former friend of Taylor. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was awakened as police forced entry into Taylor’s apartment. Fearing they were being robbed, he fired a warning shot that struck officer John Mattingly in the thigh, Walker told investigators.
Mattingly and another officer, Myles Cosgrove, returned fire, killing Taylor. Prosecutors said Hankison retreated outside the apartment complex and blindly fired shots even though the gunfire inside had subsided.
None of the bullets fired from Hankison’s gun struck anyone, but several penetrated the apartment walls and entered the adjoining unit. He testified in each of his trials, telling jurors he heard gunfire from what he mistakenly believed was a semiautomatic rifle and started shooting because he thought fellow officers were at risk of being killed.
The only other person convicted in connection to the raid is Kelly Goodlett, a former detective who pleaded guilty in 2022 to federal charges that she helped falsify the police search warrant that allowed officers to enter the apartment.
Two other former officers, Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany, are facing federal charges that they falsified records and lied to investigators after Taylor’s death.
“Just know that this is one fight. We still have two other officers that this community has to demand this Department of Justice continue to prosecute,” said Lonita Baker, another attorney for Taylor’s family.