Source: Boston Globe / Getty
On August 5, a Texas appeals court upheld its murder conviction against former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who shot and killed Botham Jean in his own apartment back in September 2018.
Guyger, who recently turned 33 years old, is currently serving a 10-year sentence. The case garnered nationwide attention. The former cop killed Jean in his home as he was eating ice because she thought he was an intruder — despite the fact that the two were both residents of the same apartment complex.
As CBS detailed, “Guyger, returning home from a long shift, mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, which was on the floor directly below his. Finding the door ajar, she entered and shot him, later testifying that she thought he was a burglar.”
At the end of the trial, she was convicted of second-degree murder in 2019.
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Guyger’s appeal claimed because she had mistaken Jean’s apartment for her own, the shooting was justifiable. With that reasoning in mind, her lawyers fought for the appeals court to “acquit [Guyger] of murder or substitute in a conviction for criminally negligent homicide, which carries a lesser sentence,” CBS furthered detailed.
According to the 5th Texas Court of Appeals in Dallas, the ruling marks the failure of her first attempt to get the result of the case overturned.
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“That she was mistaken as to Jean’s status as a resident in his own apartment or a burglar in hers does not change her mental state from intentional or knowing to criminally negligent,” court chief justice, Robert D. Burns III, and Justices Lana Myers and Robbie Partida-Kipness wrote in a statement.
“We decline to rely on Guyger’s misperception of the circumstances leading to her mistaken beliefs as a basis to reform the jury’s verdict in light of the direct evidence of her intent to kill.”
Guyger will be eligible for parole in 2024.
