A Manhattan nurse charged with murdering her estranged husband in 2020 in what she’s claimed was self defense is headed to trial.

A judge on Tuesday denied a request by prosecutors to reduce the murder charges against Tracy McCarter to manslaughter — as advocates accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of reneging on his campaign promise not to prosecute domestic violence victims.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Diane Kiesel ruled the DA’s Office had failed to provide enough justification for their shift in perspective, finding their motion to downgrade the charges unconvincing and even contradictory to the law.

The 46-year-old mother was charged with murder by former DA Cy Vance’s office in March 2020. She says she stabbed her husband James Murray after he drunkenly showed up at her apartment, demanded money and threatened her life.

Neighbors found her over Murray’s body trying to stop him from bleeding out and screaming for help. They recalled Murray going on an intoxicated rampage in the building earlier that day.

McCarter spent six months on Rikers Island after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed her grand jury hearing, which resulted in her indictment for murder.

But her lawyers, as well as domestic abuse survivors advocates, have noted that the DA’s office — then under Vance — didn’t properly inform the grand jury about Murray’s history of violence, and his intoxication levels the day of his death. 

McCarter’s case became an issue in the crowded race for Manhattan DA last year, and Bragg promised on the campaign trail not to prosecute victims of abuse.

He even tweeted: “I #StandWithTracy.  Prosecuting a domestic violence survivor who acted in self-defense is unjust.”

McCarter’s mother Darleen Cobb recently told The Post the so-called progressive prosecutor has failed her daughter.

“DA Bragg gave us the hope we didn’t have when he was elected based on his tweet that he Stands With Tracy during his campaign,” she said. “We absolutely feel betrayed and hurt, and feel that he used women and other survivors to get their vote.”

Cobb added that Bragg, “ran his entire campaign on a lie, at a domestic violence survivor’s expense.”

Advocates at Survived and Punished NY, which works to end the prosecution of domestic abuse survivors, have called on Bragg to drop all the charges against McCarter.

“District Attorney Bragg goes to great lengths to depict himself as pro-survivor, but his aggressive prosecution of Tracy has proven that to be a complete lie,” spokesperson SiobhanDingwall told The Post Tuesday.

While the office has previously offered McCarter a deal to plea to a lesser charge, and filed the recent motion, which the defendant’s attorneys were on board for, advocates accused Bragg of acting in bad faith.

Legal experts told The Post there is more prosecutors could do if they wanted to actually see McCarter’s case go away.

The DA’s Office could reconvene a grand jury and present the evidence that was omitted the first time, which might lead the jurors to decide not to charge McCarter, a legal source said. It could also submit a “Dismissal on Recommendation,” or “DOR,” which judges often grant.

Kiesel said in her decision that Bragg’s office has provided “no explanation” for why they want to downgrade the charges “beyond vague references to ‘evidence,’ ‘materials,’ and ‘statements,’ none of which are attached to their motion as exhibits.”

“They affirm, without reference to exhibit or documentation, that she is a survivor of domestic violence,” the judge said of the DA’s filings about McCarter. 

Dingwall, of Survived and Punished NY, said the judge’s decision on the motion, “makes it clear that District Attorney Bragg can’t have his cake and eat it too.”

“You cannot ‘stand with survivors’ and prosecute them at the same time.”

Bragg’s spokerspon Emily Tuttle said, “the dignity and wellbeing of survivors is at the center of the Office’s work.” She claimed that while the office can’t comment on a pending case, the DA can’t drop the charges without a judge’s approval because McCarter has already been indicted.

Eliza Orlins, a public defender who ran against Bragg in the 2021 primary, accused the DA’s Office of trying to abdicate responsibility.

“Clearly, in Tracy’s case, their filings have been entirely unconvincing, and it’s not like they don’t know how to get an indictment dismissed … They know what it means to file a DOR,” she said.

“The District Attorney has absolute discretion over which cases they bring, which cases they continue, which cases they dismiss. They could at any time dismiss the case.”

McCarter’s sister Shana Cobb, said that “Judge Kiesel’s ruling today further proves that District Attorney Bragg is talking out of both sides of his mouth.”

“His office’s failure to write a suitable motion only shows that the facts of my sister’s case support a full dismissal of all charges,” she said, referring to the judge noting inconsistencies in the prosecution’s argument. “How can the DA’s office just go forward on a murder charge that they don’t even believe?”

McCarter’s daughter Ariel Robbins had strong words for the left-wing Bragg too.

“He is the very injustice he ran against,” she said.