LOUISIVLLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A jury was unable to come to a verdict Thursday after a second day of deliberations in the trial of former Louisville police Detective Brett Hankison, who is facing two counts of civil rights violations stemming from his actions the night of the Breonna Taylor raid in 2020. 

The jury — made up of six women and six men, one of whom is Black — has deliberated for about 10 hours total after hearing seven days of testimony.

The trial centers on Hankison firing 10 times from outside Taylor's apartment through a covered sliding glass door and blinded windows in Taylor's bedroom window, with three bullets flying into an adjacent apartment where Cody Etherton, Chelsey Napper and her 5-year-old child lived.

Jurors were only heard from once Thursday, when they sent out a note a little after 10:30 a.m. asking the judge whether they "needed to know" if Breonna Taylor was a "living victim" when Hankison was shooting.

The defense has argued Taylor could have already been dead when Hankison opened fire and thus her civil rights could not be violated, which is one of the charges in the indictment. 

The prosecution, however, said Taylor only had to be alive when Hankison fired his first shot that went over her head, which was just a few seconds after the shooting began.

"Obviously she was alive when he was firing those shots," prosecutor Michael Songer, with the U.S. Department of Justice, told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday. 

There was no testimony from a medical examiner during the trial. 

U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings sent back a note telling jurors that all of the information they needed was in the jury instructions. 

The jurors stopped for the day at about 4 p.m. They will resume Friday morning. 

The charges stem from a botched March 13, 2020, raid of Taylor's home in the middle of the night, in which police officers busted down her door to serve a search warrant related to a drug dealer who lived 10 miles away.

When police burst in, Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot that hit Sgt. John Mattingly in the leg. Walker has said he believed the couple were being robbed.

Multiple Louisville Metro Police officers returned fire, killing 26-year-old Taylor. No drugs were found in her home.

Her death, along with George Floyd's, resulted in months of protests in Louisville and across the country over police brutality and racial discrimination.

In 2020, police sought out a search warrant for Taylor's home as part of a broader investigation that focused on drug suspect Jamarcus Glover. Police believed Glover may have been using Taylor's apartment to receive drugs and store money.

This is Hankison's third trial related to his actions the night of the raid. A federal jury in November 2023 deadlocked on two counts of civil rights violations and using excessive force.

A state Jefferson Circuit Court jury in March 2022 found Hankison not guilty on three counts of wanton endangerment.

Prosecutors told the jury Hankison's reckless actions on the night of the Taylor raid "shocked" other officers, traumatized neighbors and put multiple lives at risk, a prosecutor told jurors in closing arguments Wednesday.

Hankison fired 10 shots into a home he couldn’t see into, with bullets ripping through the wall into a neighboring apartment where a family and a child were sleeping, Songer told the jurors. 

"Even when officers face the most serious threats, they can’t fire their weapon unless they know what they are shooting at," he said. "It’s just common sense. They can never just guess where a suspect might be."

But Defense attorney Donald Malarcik called the incident "12 seconds of chaos," pointing out that 32 shots were fired in the time officers burst through the door and Taylor was shot in an "unfathomable tragedy."

Hankison had never been in a situation like what happened that night, where he had to make a "split-second" decision and believed Walker had an assault rifle, Malarcik said.

"It sounded to him like Kenneth Walker is walking down that hall, executing his fellow officers," Malarcik said. "He did exactly what he was supposed to do. He was acting to save lives."

The jury has to decide whether Hankison, 48, used excessive force and violated the civil rights of Taylor and three of her neighbors. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The judge will decide the sentence if there is a conviction.

Hankison told jurors Tuesday he had no doubt officers were in danger as he had already seen Mattingly shot when police burst through Taylor's door to serve a warrant and he saw a "large muzzle flash" he believed was coming from an assault rifle.

In actuality, Walker fired one shot from a handgun and did not advance on officers.

Hankison testified he saw lights and believed he knew where the shooter was by the sound of the shots and where he was when police first entered the apartment.

"Even if you believe that is true, that is not a defense in this case," Songer told jurors Wednesday. "He just saw two windows on the side of an apartment building with light in them. He just guessed."

The defense pointed out that none of Hankison’s shots hit anyone, despite all of the theoretical scenarios prosecutors said could have happened.

"Seven police officers volunteered to do their job and they showed up and Kenneth Walker, hiding in the darkness, shot John Mattingly," Malarcik said. "That’s not a hypothetical. That really happened."

Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove returned fire, hitting and killing Taylor. They were not charged in the shooting. Mattingly retired and Cosgrove was fired for failing to properly "identify a target," violating the department’s use of force policy.

Investigators said Cosgrove fired the fatal shot, killing Taylor.

The city of Louisville paid $12 million to Taylor's family and implemented numerous reforms in the police department to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.

And the Department of Justice began a wide-ranging civil rights review in Louisville in the wake of Taylor's death.

Federal investigators strongly rebuked the actions of Louisville police, saying they believe the department and Metro Government for years engaged in practices that violated the U.S. Constitution and federal law, including excessive use of force and searches based on invalid search warrants.

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