New murder trial for APD officer Christopher Taylor set for Sept. 2024

Christopher Taylor to go on trial again

A judge says APD Officer Christopher Taylor will go on trial again for the murder of Michael Ramos in 2020. This comes after two mistrials. The Ramos case is only one of two murder charges against Taylor.

AUSTIN, Texas - A judge set a murder trial date for Austin police officer Christopher Taylor at a pretrial hearing.

The new date is set for Sept. 23, 2024. However, the judge did not specify which of Taylor’s murder cases would play out in front of a jury.

Taylor currently has two pending murder charges: one for killing Michael Ramos in 2020 and another for killing Dr. Mauris Desilva in 2019. Both incidents happened while Taylor was on duty.

Christopher Taylor trial ends in mistrial

The murder trial of APD officer Christopher Taylor has ended in a mistrial after four days of jury deliberations.

During a pretrial hearing on Wednesday, the defense told the judge they wanted to try the 2019 case before retrying the Ramos case. They argued it would be a faster trial with fewer witnesses.

In response, the defense revoked its request for a speedy trial in the Ramos case to invoke it for the 2019 case.

So far, there are two mistrials already under Taylor’s name. The first came after some issues with the jury selection process. The second mistrial ruling came after a nearly five-week murder trial for the death of Ramos resulted in a hung jury.

The state told the judge they are ready to retry Taylor for the Ramos case.

The decision is now in the hands of Judge Dayna Blazey, who plans to review briefs from both sides. After that, she says a hearing will be set sometime in March, so a decision can be made on which murder charge to try Taylor for.

Austin Crime and Public Safety