The Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking a one-day prison sentence, already served, for a Louisville police officer convicted in connection with the raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death.
Ex-Louisville Metro Police Department Detective Brett Hankison was convicted last year of violating Taylor’s civil rights by blindly firing shots into a window and door during the haywire raid.
In an atypical sentencing memorandum, submitted Thursday by DOJ civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon and a senior counselor in the division, the government said that, but for the jury verdict, it “might proceed differently” in the case.
“Indeed, reasonable minds might disagree as to whether defendant Hankison’s conduct constituted a seizure under the Fourth Amendment in the first place,” said Dhillon and senior counsel Robert Keenan, neither of whom is part of the initial prosecution team. “And reasonable minds certainly might disagree whether, even if Defendant Hankison’s conduct did constitute a seizure, a prosecution under this statute should have been brought under these circumstances at all.”
Though Hankison faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, the government suggested a sentence of time served — the day he spent being booked and making his initial appearance before a judge — and three years of supervised release would suffice. His sentencing is scheduled for next week.
It marks a stunning departure from the Biden administration’s efforts to force accountability for the role of racial discrimination in police misconduct. Taylor, who was shot and killed by other officers during the raid, became a face of the Black Lives Matter movement that ignited in 2020 following her death and the police killing of George Floyd.
At trial, prosecutors said Hankison acted recklessly and “violated one of the most fundamental rules of deadly force: If they cannot see the person they’re shooting at, they cannot pull the trigger.”
The Justice Department argued in its memorandum that federal sentencing guidelines do not fairly apply to Hankison’s conviction given the “unique facts and circumstances” of the case, namely that the ex-detective was convicted on just one count following two other trials.
Hankison was acquitted on all three counts he faced during a 2022 trial in Kentucky state court. The first federal trial he faced, in 2023, resulted in a mistrial on both charges against him. And he was convicted on one of those two counts in the subsequent retrial in 2024.
Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.), who represents the congressional district encompassing Louisville, where Taylor lived, took aim at the Trump administration’s proposed sentence in a statement Thursday.
“The fact that Donald Trump’s DOJ thinks Breonna Taylor’s life is worth just a one-day jail sentence is morally reprehensible and deeply insulting,” said McGarvey, who sponsored the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act. “This is a dark day for our entire city.”
Updated at 3:33 p.m. EDT
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