XPost: alt.law-enforcement, law.court.federal, alt.fan.states.kentucky
XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/us/politics/justice-department-brett- hankison-sentence-breonna-taylor.html

The chief of the Justice Department’s civil rights unit has asked a
federal judge to sentence a Louisville police officer convicted in the
2020 killing of Breonna Taylor to one day in prison, a stunning reversal
of the unit’s longstanding efforts to address racial disparities in
policing.

Last year, a federal jury in Kentucky convicted Brett Hankison, the
officer, of one count of violating Ms. Taylor’s civil rights by using
excessive force in discharging several shots through Ms. Taylor’s window
during a drug raid that went awry.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, and a judge will consider
the government’s request at a sentencing scheduled for next week.

On Wednesday, Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, asked the judge in the case, Rebecca Grady Jennings, to sentence
Mr. Hankison to to one day in prison — essentially the brief time he had
served when he was charged — and three years of supervised release.

In the filing, Ms. Dhillon suggested the prosecution was excessive,
arguing that the Biden Justice Department had secured a conviction against
Mr. Hankison after his acquittal on state charges and the ending of his
first federal trial in a mistrial.

“In this case, two federal trials were ultimately necessary to obtain a unanimous verdict of guilt,” Ms. Dhillon wrote, adding that Mr. Hankison,
now a felon who was fired from his job five years ago, had already paid a substantial penalty for his actions.

“The jury’s verdict will almost certainly ensure that defendant Hankison
never serves as a law enforcement officer again and will also likely
ensure that he never legally possesses a firearm again,” the filing added.

Such requests are typically filed by career prosecutors who worked on the
case. Wednesday’s filing was signed by Ms. Dhillon, a political appointee
who is a veteran Republican Party activist with close ties to President
Trump, and one of her deputies.

Shortly after the department made its request public, the family’s legal
team issued a statement describing Ms. Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, as “heartbroken and angry.”

“The family asked for one thing: that Brett Hankison be sentenced in
accordance with the law and federal guidelines,” the lawyers wrote,
adding: “Recommending just one day in prison sends the unmistakable
message that white officers can violate the civil rights of Black
Americans with near-total impunity.”

Samantha Trepel, a former attorney with the civil rights division, urged
the judge to ignore the recommendations, calling the filing “transparent, last-minute political interference.”

Mr. Hankison, who is white, was the only officer to be charged for his
actions during the botched operation that prompted of protests across the country. His shots did not kill Ms. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who worked as an emergency room technician. Two other officers, also white,
fired the fatal shots, but neither was charged.

The killing brought national attention to “no-knock” warrants. A judge initially signed off on such a warrant for Ms. Taylor’s apartment, but
officers were later instructed to announce themselves. Whether they
complied remains an unresolved issue.

The chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department was fired in the wake
of protests of the killing, and a report by the Justice Department two
years ago found that the department had shown a pattern of discriminating against Black people.

Hundreds of lawyers and other staff members have left the civil rights division, with veterans of the office saying that they were driven out by
Trump administration officials who want to aggressively pursue cases
against the Ivy League, other schools and liberal cities. Lawyers in the division traditionally saw their work as protecting the constitutional
rights of minority communities and marginalized people.

Shortly after Mr. Trump was sworn in for his second term, his political appointees at the Justice Department ordered an immediate halt to all new
civil rights cases or investigations — and signaled that it might back out
of Biden-era agreements with police departments that engaged in
discrimination or violence, according to two internal memos sent to staff.

The actions, while expected, represented an abrupt about-face for a
department that had for the past four years aggressively investigated high-profile instances of violence and systemic discrimination in local
law enforcement and government agencies.

The first of two memos sent by Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff at the department, ordered a “litigation freeze” at the civil rights division to decide whether Trump appointees want “to initiate any new cases,”
according to a screenshot of the document viewed by The New York Times.

A second memo ordered a similar freeze on department activity involving so-called consent decrees — agreements hashed out with local governments intended to address flawed police practices, or bias based on race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and disabilities.

In May, Ms. Dhillon announced she was backing out of Biden-era agreements
with Louisville and Minneapolis that were intended to enact policing
reforms in the wake of the Taylor killing and murder of George Floyd,
calling them “overbroad” and bureaucratic.

The moves were part of a larger effort, spearheaded by Ms. Dhillon and
backed by senior White House officials, to prioritize enforcement of Mr. Trump’s culture war edicts, including participation of transgender women
in sports, over the division’s founding purpose of fighting race-based discrimination.

In an email in April, Ms. Dhillon directed the division’s career work
force to pursue the president’s agenda, outlined in executive orders and presidential memorandums, or face unspecified consequences. The revised statement encouraged investigations into antisemitism, anti-Christian bias
and noncompliance with a range of Trump executive fiats.

“The zealous and faithful pursuit of this section’s mission requires the
full dedication of this section’s resources, attention and energy to the priorities of the president,” she wrote.

In a separate mission statement sent to the division’s voting rights unit,
Ms. Dhillon directed department lawyers to root out voter fraud and
prosecute undocumented immigrants who tried to vote in U.S. elections.
Both are rare events, despite efforts by Trump Republicans, including Ms. Dhillon, to portray them as a major threat to election integrity.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting.


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November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

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