A Tarrant County jury on Thursday found former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean guilty of manslaughter in the 2019 shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson.
Manslaughter carries a possible sentence of two to 20 years in prison. The sentencing phase of the trial will begin Friday.
Dean fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson in her own home in October 2019.
The defense and prosecution delivered their closing arguments Wednesday and the jury got the case around 11:15 a.m. Since they did not come to a verdict Wednesday, they were sequestered overnight and will resume deliberations Thursday morning.
The case came down to whether the jury believed Dean acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Jefferson on Oct. 12, 2019.
On Tuesday, jurors heard from law enforcement professor Jay Coons, who was the defense's expert on "use-of-force."
Dean took the stand in his own defense on Monday, when the prosecution repeatedly tried to prove that he exhibited "bad police work."
Dean told the court he never saw victim Jefferson's face before he opened fire, and only saw her fall after he fired a shot. He said he thought there was a burglar who was pointing a gun at him.
In the first week of testimony, the prosecution called Jefferson's nephew Zion Carr, who was in the house at the time of the shooting, Carol Darch, an officer who responded to the call with Dean, James Smith, the neighbor who placed a call to the Fort Worth police department's non-emergency line, and multiple crime scene investigators.
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