DOJ seeks one-day sentence for officer in raid that killed Breonna Taylor

The Justice Department requested that a Louisville police officer convicted in connection with a raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death serve one day in prison.

The federal government suggested in an unusual sentencing memo to a judge late Wednesday night that the Biden administration should not have prosecuted the officer on the civil rights charges on which he was convicted.

Breaking with standard protocol, the memo 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 Dhillon, the head of the division who was appointed under the Trump administration.

In November, a federal jury found Brett Hankison, the Louisville police officer, guilty of violating Taylor’s civil rights during a March 2020 police raid in which she was fatally shot, becoming the first officer directly involved in the case to be convicted on criminal charges.

Hankison faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. The judge overseeing the case — U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first administration — will consider the government’s request. A sentencing hearing is set for July 22, according to court documents.

The memo requests that Hankison receive credit for time already served — the day he was arrested and made his initial court appearance — and that he not serve any time in prison.

Taylor, who is Black, was fatally shot weeks before the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. The deaths helped ignite nationwide protests seeking greater police accountability over the use of excessive force against Black people.

Dhillon’s memo says the Justice Department respects the jury’s verdict and that the conviction means Hankison, who is White, will probably never be able to serve as a police officer or own a firearm. The memo explains why the Justice Department believes that Hankison deserves a punishment that is far less than what federal sentencing guidelines recommend.

“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 ten times blindly into Ms. Taylor’s home.”

Attorneys representing Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, issued a scathing statement Thursday, denouncing the Justice Department’s move and describing Palmer as “once again, heartbroken and angry.”

“This recommendation is an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury’s decision,” attorneys Ben Crump, Lonita Baker and Sam Aguiar said in the statement. “When a police officer is found guilty of violating someone’s constitutional rights, there must be real accountability and justice.”

The jury found that Hankison used excessive force by firing 10 shots through Taylor’s apartment’s window and door, both covered with shades and curtains. The jury, which deliberated for three days, found Hankison not guilty on a second charge of violating the rights of three neighbors

None of the bullets fired from Hankison’s gun struck anyone, but several penetrated the apartment walls and entered an adjoining unit. Taylor was fatally shot by another officer after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a warning shot from a legally owned handgun and police returned fire, investigators said.

The Justice Department’s sentencing request “is not just an insult — it’s a painful reminder that the violence of bad decision-making continues to be overlooked and excused,” Louisville Metro Council Rep. Shameka Parrish-Wright (D) said.

The Justice Department prosecuted Hankison after he was acquitted in 2022 on state charges of wanton endangerment of Taylor’s neighbors. Hankison’s first trial on federal charges ended in a mistrial in November 2023 when the jury deadlocked, prompting federal prosecutors to announce they would retry him.

“After a recent review … counsel is unaware of another prosecution in which a police officer has been charged with depriving the rights of another person under the Fourth Amendment for returning fire and not injuring anyone,” the Justice Department memo states. “Perhaps coincidentally, in this case, two federal trials were ultimately necessary to obtain a unanimous verdict of guilt. But even then, the jury convicted on only one count, despite the fact that the elements of the charge and underlying conduct are essentially the same.”

Samantha Trepel — a former Justice Department civil rights attorney who prosecuted officers who were found guilty of violating Floyd’s civil rights in Minneapolis — reacted to the sentencing memo in a LinkedIn post, saying it sets a dangerous precedent and sends a sign that the Justice Department will not hold officers accountable who violate the law.

Before Hankison’s conviction, the only person convicted in connection with the raid was Kelly Goodlett, a former detective who pleaded guilty to federal charges that she helped falsify the police search warrant that allowed officers to enter the apartment.

“The court will recognize this for what it is — transparent, last minute political interference into a case that was tried by nonpolitical, longtime career prosecutors who obtained this conviction in front of an all-white jury of Kentucky citizens before a Trump-appointed judge,” Trepel wrote. “It is a betrayal of the jury’s verdict, which included a special finding that the officer’s conducted amounted to attempted murder. It is a betrayal of the brave officers who took the witness stand and testified that this officer’s conduct endangered lives and violated basic, fundamental policies and training.”

Keenan, one of the attorneys who signed the memo, was involved in the Justice Department’s attempts to walk back another Biden-era police conviction this year — a case involving a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy found guilty on civil rights charges after he assaulted and pepper sprayed a woman outside a supermarket in 2023.

A federal jury convicted Deputy Trevor Kirk in February of one felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law, a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years. After Bill Essayli, the Trump-appointed acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles took office, Kirk received an unusual plea offer that called for dismissing the felony charge if the deputy agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor with a recommended sentence of one-year of probation.

Keenan was the only federal prosecutor to sign the plea agreement.

Several federal prosecutors in Los Angeles who had been involved in the case resigned. A judge rejected the government’s sentencing recommendation of probation and sentenced Kirk to four months in prison last month.

The sentencing memo in the Hankison case and the Kirk case are the latest signs that the Justice Department under the Trump administration 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, yearslong federal investigations in both cities found their respective police departments had engaged in the systemic use of excessive force and racial discrimination.

During the waning weeks of the Biden administration, the Justice Department sought federal court approval for both agreements. But in May, federal prosecutors filed motions seeking to dismiss them and the Trump administration announced it would abandon Biden-era investigations into other police forces and retract finding that officers had acted unconstitutionally.

A federal judge in Minnesota agreed to dismiss the Minneapolis agreement, criticizing it as unnecessary and a poor use of resources.

The judge in the Louisville case has not ruled on the agreement there, though he has expressed skepticism about the pact and local leaders are not contesting the Justice Department’s efforts to have the consent agreement dismissed.

Leaders in both cities have vowed to press on with reforming their police agencies without federal involvement.

The Trump administration “is sending a dangerous and disturbing message that it’s acceptable for law enforcement to fire blindly into people’s homes,” said Kentucky State Sen. Keturah Herron (D), who as a community activist in 2021 helped successfully champion the Louisville city council to approve “Breonna’s Law,” which banned local police from using no-knock warrants.

“Brett Hankison went to trial, and he went through a jury, and he was prosecuted and tried by jury of his peers in the community where it happened in,” Herron said. “The prosecutors in the case were career, nonpolitical public servants, and this was not a political process. But the outcome from this administration is making it political.”

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• Jeremy Roebuck and Mark Berman contributed.