Jury begins deliberating in murder trial of former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger
Jurors deliberated for several hours Monday afternoon without reaching a verdict in the murder trial of former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger. The jury will resume deliberations at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
During closing arguments, Dallas County prosecutor Jason Hermus said he rejected the idea that it was reasonable a trained Dallas police officer with five years of service on the force could shoot an unarmed man in the chest who was doing absolutely nothing wrong.
“To accept the premise that she could just walk into someone’s home and kill a man who was doing nothing and say, ‘Oops, my bad,’ is unreasonable,” Hermus said.
Prosecutors told jurors that a guilty murder verdict is appropriate in the case, even though manslaughter, which carries a two- to 20-year prison sentence on conviction, is a charge the jury can consider. Manslaughter is defined as when a person “recklessly causes the death of another individual,” according to Texas law.
If Guyger is convicted of murder, she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. If convicted of manslaughter, it is possible she could be eligible for probation.
Guyger took the stand in her own defense on Friday, but her story about how and why she killed her neighbor Botham Jean — a 26-year-old accountant who worked for PwC (Price, Waterhouse, Cooper) — has been consistent throughout.
She has said that she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own and thought he was an intruder.
Guyger’s defense attorney Toby Shook said the law protects people in certain circumstances who make mistakes based on incorrect assumptions and that the state must rule out every possible reasonable doubt, or the jury must hand down a not guilty verdict. Tragic mistakes can be made, he said.
“A student who comes home to surprise her parents and a father kills his daughter — It’s a tragic situation but it’s not criminal,” Shook said in his closing arguments.
Self defense and mistake of fact are among the laws which should govern the jury’s deliberation, according to instructions given to jurors by the court. Although Guyger was mistaken about being in her own apartment, the jury will be allowed to consider the castle doctrine, or “stand your ground” defense, which allows a resident to use deadly force to protect their home.
And Guyger believed that after a stressful day, she had made it home, Shook said. But her home was in a confusing place, Shook told the jury. After interviewing nearly 300 residents at the Southside Flats complex, 93 said they had also gone to the wrong apartment thinking they were home, Texas Ranger David Armstrong testified.
“She made horrible mistakes,” Shook said. “Yet people do it all the time.”
Guyger was carrying 30 pounds of equipment, Shook said.
“She doesn’t look for numbers,” Shook said. “She’s not looking at the floor.”
Guyger’s gaze is fixed just above waist level, and when she hears someone she thinks is in her apartment, it happens in a nano-second, Shook said, reminding jurors of Guyger’s testimony. People under stress can experience an elevated heart rate, tunnel vision, the blood begins to rush. The door seems to open by itself. Guyger points her gun at Jean, who does not comply with her commands, and she shoots, he said.
“She didn’t make a decision to charge in there and start shooting people,” Shook said. “She comes to the realization that she has made a horrible, horrible mistake.”
Shook said prosecutors are hoping the jury makes a decision based on emotion, but he cautioned against that.
“You have to look at the circumstances confronting Amber Guyger and the decisions she made,” Shook said. “You have to look at this case coolly and calmly. It’s one of those cases where there are no winners. It’s just a horrible, horrible tragedy.”
Prosecution calls Guyger’s story ‘garbage’
Jason Fine, who is helping to prosecute the case, crumpled a piece of paper and characterized Guyger’s testimony as garbage.
Fine offered the example of a deer hunter who accidentally shoots a person dressed up to look like a deer as an example of a mistake of fact defense.
“I could believe I’m in Florida right now,” Fine said. “That doesn’t mean it’s reasonable. If I shoot Mr. Hermus right now and say I thought his tie turned into a gun, that’s not reasonable. Every defendant believes they were justified.”
The castle doctrine is also not applicable, Fine said. The castle doctrine was designed to protect homeowners, not intruders, according to Fine.
“If she (Guyger) had thought for one second, you know what would have happened,” Fine said. “She would have realized that she made a mistake. She would have been embarrassed for a second. And knowing his personality, Bo would have probably laughed it off and they would have sat down and watched TV and he would have made a new friend.”
Prosecutors argued that the state cannot allow people to come into someone’s home, shoot and kill them and there be no consequences. Self defense also does not apply to Guyger’s situation, Hermus said.
“If there is a reasonable alternative to taking someone’s life, then you are not going to benefit from using self defense,” Hermus said in his closing argument. “Why would we want to kill another human being if we could have done anything else?”
Guyger’s decision to use deadly force was made out in the hallway, Hermus said.
“She was in a position of safety behind a steel door, when she made the connection that her door was not locked,” Hermus said. “She was outside when she decided she would engage the threat. She didn’t even have to retreat.”
Guyger could have stayed where she was outside of that door and called for police, Hermus said. Guyger was the aggressor, and Guyger was the intruder, not Jean, prosecutors said.
“As soon as she acquires him (as a target), she shoots,” Hermus said. “There was no long conversation.”
Shook asked the jury to ignore the media coverage and what they have seen on social media before the trial began. There will be a lot of public pressure for people to base their decision on sympathy for Jean and his family. But the jury must reject that, Shook said.
“They (the state) want you charged up,” Shook told the jurors.
Testimony, arguments about how the shooting happened
Guyger, who was in uniform but off duty at the time of the shooting on Sept. 6, 2018, was fired from the Dallas Police Department.
Guyger missed quite a few details on her way to the apartment of the man she mistakenly shot and killed because she believed he was a criminal, witness testimony indicated:
She missed seeing the red floor mat that was in front of Botham Jean’s apartment door.
She missed or ignored signals that she parked on the wrong floor of her apartment building.
She missed the differences in the layout and furniture inside her apartment and Jean’s apartment.
Guyger’s attorneys launched their defense of the ex-police officer on Friday, after explaining during opening statements that she had worked more than a 14-hour day when she shot and killed Jean.
Guyger assisted the Dallas SWAT unit with apprehending a group of suspects described as a violent robbery ring, and one of her last official acts of the day was transporting a suspect to jail. But during the day Guyger spent at least some of her time on the Internet and texting her former love interest and partner, Martin Rivera.
Hermus argued early during the trial that Guyger was distracted by her electronic banter with Rivera and was perhaps planning an after-work rendezvous with him, which Rivera denied while on the witness stand.
Prosecutors also argued that Jean was shot while he was sitting on the couch and perhaps trying to get up. He had been sitting in his living room eating ice cream. They also presented evidence that there was no blood on Guyger’s clothing and the gloves she possessed were unsoiled, indicating she might not have given CPR to Jean.
Guyger testified that Jean was coming toward her when she fired her gun, and that she couldn’t see his hands and didn’t know if he was armed. She was afraid he was going to kill her, she said.
During cross-examination, when Guyger was asked whether she intended to kill Jean, she replied that she did.
This story was originally published September 30, 2019 at 10:30 AM.
