An attorney for Amber Guyger, the White former Dallas police officer convicted of killing of Black neighbor Botham Jean in his apartment, asked a Texas appeals court Tuesday to acquit her of murder or find her guilty of a lesser charge.
Guyger testified at her 2019 trial that after working long hours on September 6,2018, she returned to her Dallas apartment complex. In uniform but off duty, she approached what she thought was her apartment. She noticed the door was partially open, saw a man inside who she believed to be an intruder and fired her service weapon, killing him. She was actually at the apartment directly above hers — where Jean, a 26-year-old PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant, lived. Prosecutors said Jean had been on the couch in his shorts, watching TV and eating vanilla ice cream when Guyger walked in and fatally shot him. In October 2019, a jury found Guyger guilty of murdering Jean and sentenced her to 10 years in prison. Guyger’s defense claims there was insufficient evidence to convict her of murder. The defense has asked the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas to either acquit Guyger of that charge or make a finding of criminally negligent homicide — which carries a punishment of six months to two years — and hold a new hearing on the punishment. Jean’s family and their attorneys said in a statement Tuesday they “vehemently oppose” the appeal and Guyger’s “attempt to get a reduced sentence.” “When Amber Guyger was sentenced, our family finally found a measure of justice and peace,” the family said. “Her actions were clearly criminal: she saw a (B)lack man and shot, without reason and without justification, murdering him in his own home. The jury delivered a thoughtful and just verdict that should not be overturned.
