Botham Jean killing is back in court

DALLAS — Lawyers for former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger will make their case today before a panel of appellate justices to toss her murder conviction, but Dallas County prosecutors say the jury’s decision should stand.

Guyger, convicted of murder in 2019 for the shooting death of former Harding University student Botham Jean in his own apartment, argued in court records that, at most, she should be convicted of criminally negligent homicide. That charge is a lesser felony and punishable by up to two years in prison.

Guyger testified she mistakenly entered the wrong apartment one floor above hers Sept. 6, 2018, and shot Jean, believing he was an intruder.

Jurors heard six days of testimony before convicting Guyger of murder in October 2019. She is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

Guyger’s lawyers say that although she intended to shoot Jean when she fired her gun, a necessary finding for a murder charge, she believed she had the right to act in self-defense. Texas allows for deadly force to be used in self-defense situations.

“A rational jury would have concluded that Guyger was reasonable in her belief that she entered her apartment, saw an intruder who did not show his hands, and was justified in using deadly force in self defense,” her lawyers wrote in a brief filed with a request for a hearing.

But the jury that convicted Guyger considered the state’s castle doctrine, the right to use deadly force to defend yourself, when deciding whether to convict Guyger. They rejected the idea that it applied to her.

If the judges instead convict Guygerof criminally negligent homicide, they should order a new trial on her punishment, her lawyers said.

Dallas County prosecutors for District Attorney John Creuzot are fighting to uphold her conviction and say Guyger’s conviction is appropriate. They argue she is only trying to undo a verdict she didn’t want.