The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has declined to hear arguments in the murder conviction and 10-year prison term of former Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger.
The High Court turned aside Guyger's request for a discressionary review. One justice issued a dissenting opinion that was joined by a second justice.
A Dallas County jury found Guyger guilty of the September 2018 murder of Botham Jean, who lived in her apartment complex. Guyger said she parked on the wrong floor and mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, which was directly below his, and mistook him for a burglar. In the frantic 911 call played repeatedly during the trial, Guyger said "I thought it was my apartment" nearly 20 times. Her lawyers argued that the identical physical appearance of the apartment complex from floor to floor frequently led to tenants going to the wrong apartments.
But prosecutors questioned how Guyger could have missed numerous signs that she was in the wrong place. They also asked why she didn’t call for backup instead of walking into the apartment if she thought she was being burglarized and suggested she was distracted by sexually explicit phone messages she had been exchanging with her police partner, who was also her lover.
In her appeal, lawyers for Guyger claimed the case presented "a mistake of fact." They argued that Guyger legitimately believed she was at her apartment based on an incorrect set of circumstances. What's more they contended the evidence did not support a conviction.
The two dissenting justices wanted to hear more arguments.
"In my view, however, it is at least possible to argue that an application of mistake of fact, appropriately tailored to the law of self defense, might have made a difference to the court of appeals’ legal sufficiency analysis." wrote Justice Kevin Yeary. "We should grant appellant’s petition to decide whether the court of appeals was correct to regard the two defenses as mutually exclusive, and to conduct its sufficiency analysis as if they were."
Yeary was joined by Justice Michelle Slaughter.
The decision effectively ends the appeals for Guyger.
The basic facts of the unusual shooting were not in dispute throughout the trial. Guyger, returning from a long shift that night, entered Jean’s fourth-floor apartment and shot him. He had been eating a bowl of ice cream before she fired.
Guyger said she parked on the wrong floor and mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, which was directly below his, and mistook him for a burglar. In the frantic 911 call played repeatedly during the trial, Guyger said "I thought it was my apartment" nearly 20 times. Her lawyers argued that the identical physical appearance of the apartment complex from floor to floor frequently led to tenants going to the wrong apartments.
But prosecutors questioned how Guyger could have missed numerous signs that she was in the wrong place. They also asked why she didn’t call for backup instead of walking into the apartment if she thought she was being burglarized and suggested she was distracted by sexually explicit phone messages she had been exchanging with her police partner, who was also her lover.
The shooting drew widespread attention because of the strange circumstances and because it was one in a string of shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers.
The jury was made up mostly of women and people of color.
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