LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Attorneys are getting close to the start of Brett Hankison's second federal civil rights trial, narrowing a jury pool of 150 down to 36 on Thursday, with the final panel of 16 (12 jurors and four alternates) set to be sworn in Friday morning.
Hankison, a former detective with the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD), is federally charged with violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor and her neighbors the night of a botched raid at her apartment in 2020.
Late Thursday afternoon, prosecutors and defense attorneys began "striking" jurors to remove them from the pool, working to seat 12 people and four alternates by Friday. Testimony is expected to start Monday.
As attorneys worked privately to narrow down the jury pool, members of Taylor's family and supporters of the Breonna Taylor movement stood outside the federal courthouse in downtown Louisville. Some chanted familiar words heard during the 2020 protests in the wake of Taylor's death.
"We want the state of Kentucky, the jurors, to listen to the evidence -- to listen to the facts, and just do the right thing," Bianca Austin, Taylor's aunt, said. "Feelings don't get us anywhere, feelings aren't going to get us justice. It's the facts."
Hours earlier, Hankison and his team of attorneys had arrived at the courthouse. They're also grappling with a last-ditch effort from prosecutors to include more evidence in the trial -- testimony that wasn't included in either of the first two trials for Hankison.
The U.S. Department of Justice wants jurors to hear about the former LMPD detective's prior behavior as a cop, which they call "aggressive."
Prosecutors want to connect those prior incidents to his actions during the raid at Taylor's home in an effort to paint the former detective as having a history of being reckless and endangering those around him.
Louisville attorney Thomas Clay, who is not associated with Hankison's case, said the DOJ is "trying to show a pattern of conduct, that he overacts under certain situations."
Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings has already denied the prosecution's request, but left the door open for them to provide more evidence to prove Hankison's past actions showed similar intent to the night Taylor was killed.
"I think it would be very difficult from an evidentiary perspective for the judge to let in evidence that he had a temper," Attorney and former federal prosecutor Brian Butler, who's also not associated with Hankison's case, told WHAS11. "There is very specific and limited circumstances where you can use bad character evidence in a trial against a defendant, and it can't be to show propensity to do something bad."
Hankison was acquitted of his wanton endangerment charges in a state trial in 2022. And last November, his first federal trial ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked.
"I've never heard of a police officer being charged with a wanton endangerment or a civil rights case related to firing a shot that didn't hit anybody -- that was done after a police officer in that group was hit. It's unprecedented. It's never happened that I've ever known of," Butler explained.
Butler, a former federal prosecutor, pointed out that Hankison isn't being tried for shooting anyone.
"He's being tried for firing a weapon that they say he didn't have a good sight line and could have hit somebody in a different apartment," he added.
In this latest case, as well as his previous two trials, Hankison is charged with violating Taylor's neighbors' rights as well.
Some of his bullets flew through their home, including one with a sleeping baby and a pregnant woman.
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