A judge on Friday tossed out an involuntary manslaughter charge against a Detroit police officer who shot and killed a 7-year-old girl during a 2010 police raid.
Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway was acting on a motion from the defense as the two-week jury trial headed into closing arguments.
Officer Joseph Weekley still faces a charge of reckless discharge of a firearm in the death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Weekley is being retried after a jury failed to reach a verdict last year in the same case.
Judge Gray Hathaway said she accepted the defense’s reasoning that evidence and testimony did not meet the involuntary manslaughter charge.
Involuntary manslaughter carries a stipulation of willful negligence but “the entire trial has been about the carelessness of the defendant based on his skills… Nowhere did I hear anything about a willful negligence,” Gray Hathaway said.