The Justice Department recommended a one-day prison sentence for a former Louisville, Kentucky, police officerfound guilty of violating Breonna Taylor's civil rightsduring a fatal March 2020 police raid. Taylor, 26, was inside her apartment when shewas fatally shot by plainclothes officersaround 12:40 a.m. on March 13, 2020, during a botched narcotics investigation. Brett Hankison fired 10 rounds into Taylor's apartment through a covered glass door and window,three of which traveledinto an adjacent apartment with a man, pregnant woman and 5-year-old inside. None of the rounds fired by Hankison hit Taylor or any of the neighbors. Hankison, who is scheduled to be sentenced on July 21, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. A pre-sentence report prepared by the United States Probation Office recommended a sentence between 11.25 and 14 years, according to court documents. The Justice Department memo said that range was incorrectly calculated and "excessive," recommending that the court "grant a significant downward departure." The DOJ requested Hankison instead be sentenced to one day's imprisonment, which would be considered already served because the "defendant gets credit for the day he was booked and made his initial appearance," followed by three years of supervised release. The Justice Department said in a sentencing memorandum filed July 16 that is it "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 government respects the jury's verdict, which will almost certainly ensure that Hankison never serves as a law enforcement officer again and will also likely ensure that he never legally possesses a firearm again," the memorandum said. "But adding on top of those consequences a sentence within the lengthy guidelines range — even when properly calculated — would, in the government's view, simply be unjust under these circumstances." The memorandum also says that former PresidentJoe Biden's administration should not have prosecuted Hankison on civil rights charges at all. "Indeed, reasonable minds might disagree as to whether Hanksion's conduct constituted a seizure under the Fourth Amendment in the first place," the memorandum states. "... And reasonable minds certainly might disagree whether, even if Hankison's conduct did constitute a seizure, a prosecution under this statute should have been brought under these circumstances at all." The sentencing memorandum was signed by Robert J. Keenum, senior counsel for the DOJ's civil rights division, and Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the department. Keenan was not part of the original prosecution team. Dhillon was appointed by the current President Donald Trump's administration. As police entered the apartment, Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot an officer in the leg. Walker later said he believed the officers were intruders. Hankison was federally charged with violating the civil rights of Taylor and the three nearby neighbors. His first trial on those chargesended in a mistrialin 2023. In November, a second federal jury convicted Hankison of violating Taylor's civil rights but acquitted him on the separate count of violating the rights of the neighbors. He is the only officer who fired into the apartment to be charged and convicted of any crime, though aprobe into the warrant that authorized the raidcontinues. The U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Kentucky did not immediately return a request for comment, along with a representative for Taylor's family. (This story has been updated to add new information.) Contributing: Stephanie Kuzydym and Lucas Aulbach, Louisville Courier Journal This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Ex-officer in Breonna Taylor raid could face single-day sentence: DOJ
