A now-retired Austin police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man while a member of a federal task force cannot be tried by the state, a U.S. District Court judge ruled Thursday.
Judge Lee Yeakel ruled the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Charles Kleinert immunity from state charges of manslaughter in the 2013 shooting death of Larry Jackson.
Yeakel said Kleinert was acting as a federal officer on the day he chased Jackson and got into a physical confrontation that ended when Kleinert’s gun was accidentally fired.
“This court will not slice the four-minute sequence of events on July 26, 2013, into discrete segments, requiring Kleinert to stop and reevaluate his position while in pursuant of Jackson,” Yeakel wrote in his 30-page decision. “To do so would render meaningless the constitution’s position as supreme, and open each instance of federal-officer action to second guessing under state law. Immunity exists to avoid such result.”
Kleinert’s attorney called the decision “100% correct.”
“The state criminal case should never have been brought,” Randy Leavitt said. Leavitt had argued that Jackson wouldn’t have died had he not committed a crime and resisted arrest.
Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said her office is looking at the decision to see what future legal steps her team might take.
“I am totally dismayed by today’s federal court action dismissing the Charles Kleinert prosecution,” she said.
Investigating a bank robbery
Kleinert had responded to an Austin bank that had been robbed on the morning of July 26, 2013. He was interviewing two bank employees when Jackson came to the front door of the building. He tried the locked doors, then left, but soon came back.
One of the employees went to the door to ask him his business, and he gave the woman a false name. The employee asked Kleinert to talk to Jackson. The two had spoken for a very short time when Jackson ran.
Jackson potentially committed a federal crime when he came to the bank under false pretenses, the ruling says.
Jackson was getting away when Kleinert flagged down a car and identified himself as an Austin police officer.
The officer caught up with Jackson and pulled his weapon on him. The men ended up in a struggle, the court document says.
Kleinert struck Jackson twice and was about to strike him a third time when the gun went off, killing him.
Acting as a federal officer
Should the officer have chased the suspect? Should he have drawn his weapon? The judge says that’s not his concern.
“Kleinert’s decision to go ‘hands on’ with Jackson, rather than letting Jackson flee, may in the minds of some make Kleinert’s conduct questionable,” Yeakel said. “However, questionable conduct or decision making is not before the court.”
The judge was only ruling on whether the officer was immune from state charges.
“Kleinert was acting as a federal officer from his first to last encounter with Jackson. At all times, Kleinert was attempting to detain and arrest Jackson for committing federal offenses in Kleinert’ s presence — actions that Kleinert was authorized by federal law to perform.”
A family mourns
The ruling comes in the wake of numerous cases of white police officers killing black suspects like Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.
Kleinert is white; Jackson was black.
“I think that it is further proof that the legal system protects police officers for criminal responsibility no matter what they do,” said Adam Loewy, an attorney for Jackson’s parents. “And I believe that this shows that a Black man can be executed, literally in broad daylight, shot in the back of the neck, and a police officer can get off scot-free on a legal technicality.”
The ruling doesn’t prohibit federal charges from being filed at some point.