Charge against officer in fatal shooting tossed

Four days before former Austin police officer Charles Kleinert was set to stand trial, a federal judge in Texas on Thursday dismissed a manslaughter charge against him in the 2013 shooting death of Larry Jackson Jr., an unarmed black man.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel cites a little-known 1889 case that determined federal agents can be granted immunity from state criminal charges and undoes one of a handful of indictments handed down to police officers out of the thousands of fatal police shootings that have occurred in recent years.

Kleinert was one of 54 officers to be charged in fatal on-duty shootings from 200514, according to a Washington Post analysis published earlier this year. So far in 2015, there have been more than 800 fatal on-duty police shootings that have resulted in charges for just five officers, according to a Post database.

Jackson, 32, was shot to death on July 26, 2013, after he visited his local bank.

The bank was on lockdown after a robbery earlier in the day. Austin police have said Jackson returned to the bank a second time, when he was confronted by Kleinert, a detective who was investigating the robbery. After a few minutes, Jackson ran.

Kleinert gave chase, commandeering the vehicle of a woman driving in the area.

Kleinert caught up to Jackson underneath a bridge. The officer said he drew his weapon and that during a violent struggle it accidentally discharged, putting a bullet in the back of Jackson’s neck.

Jackson’s family, which received a $1.25 million settlement from Austin, has insisted the shooting was intentional.

“[Kleinert] never claims that Larry attacked him,” said Adam Loewy, an attorney for Jackson’s family. “The forensic evidence shows that Larry was on his hands and knees and the gun was at the back of his neck. Execution style.”

Kleinert was indicted on manslaughter charges, with a grand jury concluding that Kleinert “did then and there recklessly cause the death of Larry Jackson by striking and by attempting to strike Larry Jackson with [his] hand while holding a loaded firearm.”

But Kleinert’s legal team argued that the shooting was accidental and that, because he was a member of an FBI task force that he was entitled to “supremacy clause immunity” — a defense that argues that because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, a federal officer who at the time reasonably believes that his actions were necessary to the performance of his federal duties is immune from state criminal prosecution.

Yeakel agreed, ruling that Kleinert was acting in his federal capacity while investigating the bank robbery and therefore has federal immunity.

The federal immunity defense dates back to an 1889 shooting, in which a U.S. marshal assigned to protect Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field shot and killed a man who had attacked the judge. The Supreme Court ruled that because the officer was acting in his capacity as a federal agent, he could not be tried or found guilty of murder.

Kleinert’s attorney argued that while Kleinert was an Austin detective, he was also deputized as an FBI agent, and therefore immune from prosecution.

“The court concludes that from the time Kleinert began his conversations with Jackson until the time Jackson died, Kleinert was acting in his capacity as a federal officer,” Yeakel wrote. “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.”

Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said Thursday night that she has yet to determine if she will appeal the ruling.

In a statement, Kleinert’s attorneys, Randy Leavitt and Eric Nichols, praised the decision to dismiss the charges and said the fact that the charges were issued amounted to inappropriate micromanaging of a police officer.

“The death of Larry Jackson was an accident that occurred because Mr. Jackson actively resisted Mr. Kleinert’s efforts to arrest Mr. Jackson for a federal crime,” they wrote. “This accidental death would not have happened if Mr. Jackson did not commit a crime, and it would not have happened if Mr. Jackson had not resisted efforts by a federal officer to arrest him for that crime.”

The ruling shocked Jackson’s family and attorneys.

“This man just got away with murder,” Loewy said. “It is a historic moment for all of the wrong reasons. It is just unbelievable that this went down this way.”