Brett Hankison's lawyers want federal judge to compel prosecution to turn over Breonna Taylor's phone

Attorneys for former Louisville Metro Police detective Brett Hankison requested for a federal judge to order that prosecutors turn over Breonna Taylor's cellphone, which was seized by law enforcement after Taylor was shot and killed by another detective in March 2020.

Hankison faces a charge that he violated civil rights of Taylor, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker and three neighbors when he fired 10 bullets through a covered sliding-glass door and window of Taylor's apartment. Some of the bullets went through a common wall and into an adjacent apartment.

Hankison is set stand for a retrial on Oct. 15, according to court records, after a jury failed to return a verdict in November 2023.

In a motion originally filed July 5, attorneys for Hankison said they had requested prosecutors to provide them with Taylor's iPhone in at least 12 emails and during a Zoom meeting, but the efforts were "unsuccessful," thus prompting them to file a motion to compel.

Hankison's lawyers said they wish to see if the phone's data had been compromised, according to the motion. They stated the prosecution had previously acknowledged the phone's data may have compromised when "someone in law enforcement" repeatedly entered a wrong password. The motion also stated that a state forensic examiner attempted to extract data from the iPhone and SIM card, but the attempts to do so were unsuccessful.

In the motion, the defense stated it learned that recent "updates to the commercial software" could allow an expert to extract data from Taylor's phone using "brute force when the passcode is unknown."

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Reporter Rachel Smith contributed. Reach reporter Leo Bertucci at lbertucci@gannett.com or @leober2chee on X, formerly known as Twitter