LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The scheduled August trial of a former Louisville police officer charged with federal crimes in connection with the fatal raid on Breonna Taylor's home in 2020 has been delayed until Oct. 30.
An attorney for Brett Hankison told U.S. District Court Judge Regina Edwards on Wednesday that prosecutors had turned over an "immense volume" of evidence and it would be "practically impossible" for the defense to be ready by this summer.
Attorney Jack Byrd said prosecutors have turned over more than 1 million items of evidence.
"Obviously, it’s going to take awhile to go through that amount" and obtain the necessary experts and witnesses, Bryd said during a pre-trial conference hearing.
Byrd suggested a trial date for spring 2024, but the prosecution objected, arguing the defense now has all of the evidence and a more modest delay should work.
Edwards set the new trial date for Oct. 30. It is expected to last three weeks, with prosecutors saying they will use about two of those weeks to put on their case.
Hankison is due back in federal court on May 17 for a status conference.
Hankison was indicted in August on two charges of deprivation of rights for firing into a bedroom window in Taylor's apartment that was covered with blinds and a blackout curtain after "there was no longer a lawful objective justifying the use of deadly force," according to the indictment.
He also faces charges for shooting through a wall of Taylor's apartment and into a neighboring unit, endangering three people, including a then-3-year-old boy.
In a similar case, a jury in a state criminal case found Hankison not guilty on three counts of wanton endangerment last March stemming from the botched raid of Taylor's home.
Three other former officers have also been federally charged for their involvement in the Taylor case: Kyle Meany, Kelly Goodlett and Joshua Jaynes.
Jaynes, Meany and Hankison face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Goodlett has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy for knowingly including false information in the search warrant affidavit and then conspiring with Jaynes to cover it up.
U.S. attorneys had already filed more than 300,000 pages of documents, dozens of video recordings and data from cellphones and GPS trackers, according to court documents. The prosecution told the judge Thursday that three more rounds of evidence have been provided more recently.
Meany and Jaynes have hearings scheduled for next week. The two do not currently have trial dates scheduled.
The officers face charges that include civil rights offenses, unlawful conspiracies, unconstitutional use of force and obstruction.
The charges resulted from a federal investigation that, in part, looked at how police obtained the search warrant for Taylor's apartment, something a prior state investigation by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron's office did not pursue. Cameron has said that aspect was part of the Justice Department's work.
Jaynes and Meany are accused of drafting and approving "what they knew was a false affidavit to support a search warrant for Ms. Taylor's home," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke has said. "That false affidavit set in motion events that led to Ms. Taylor's death when other LMPD officers executed that warrant."
Taylor was inside the apartment with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, when police burst in early in the morning on March 13, 2020.
Police were looking for money or drugs involving Jamarcus Glover, who was at the center of a narcotics probe by Louisville police. The warrant for Taylor's home was executed around the same time that police served other warrants on suspected drug houses in the city's west end — some 10 miles away.
LMPD has claimed that while Jaynes obtained a "no-knock" warrant, police repeatedly knocked on Taylor's door and announced themselves before knocking it in.
Walker has said he never heard police announce themselves and believed the couple was being robbed. He fired a shot, hitting former officer John Mattingly in the leg.
Police responded with 32 shots, hitting Taylor six times. The 26-year-old died at the scene.
No drugs were found in her home.
The former detectives who fired the shots that struck Taylor — Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove — were not charged because they didn't know about the false information in the search warrant.
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