State wants 28-year sentence for Amber Guyger, a year for every Botham Jean birthday
Prosecutors asked the jury for a sentence of no shorter than 28 years, one year of punishment for each birthday Botham Jean’s family would have celebrated Sunday had the man not been murdered.
Amber Guyger’s defense attorney Toby Shook suggested a more lenient sentence, one reserved for those not likely to commit another crime.
Jurors began deliberating on the sentence about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday following the closing arguments.
Guyger, a former Dallas police officer, could face a sentence of five to 99 years in prison after being found guilty Tuesday of murder in the shooting death of Jean, her 26-year-old unarmed black neighbor.
On Sept. 6, 2018, Guyger, who is white, entered Jean’s apartment, mistaking it for her own, and believed he was an intruder, she testified.
She had just finished working an extended shift of more than 14 hours for the Dallas Police Department and was still in uniform when she shot Jean with her service weapon. The department fired her after the shooting.
Guyger was booked into the Dallas County Jail on Tuesday afternoon after the jury pronounced her guilt, which resulted in screams of elation from court watchers outside in the hallway.
LaQuita Long, Dallas County assistant district attorney, used the words of a sermon from Jean’s pastor during Wednesday’s closing arguments.
“To the defendant he was just a silhouette in the room,” Jean’s pastor said during his sermon, according to Long. “To anyone who had ever met him, he was the brightest light in the room.”
Long said that during his 26 years, Jean had probably performed more community service than the people in the courtroom combined.
“Today is the day that you tell us that her actions deserve consequences,” Long said.
Shook, Guyger’s attorney,suggested that prosecutors had painted her as callous, as uncaring and as less than remorseful.
Shook told jurors when they are tempted to think of Guyger as callous, they should remember the testimony of her friends, two who are black, who say the defendant is always caring, always thoughtful and always kind.
“The punishment range is very wide because every murder is different,” Shook said. “Some cases should be decided on the high end and others on the low end. On the low end, people make terrible, terrible mistakes and they have to be held accountable, but that shouldn’t be the end of their life.”
Guyger put her life on the line for the people of Dallas every day, and she has already been punished, Shook said. The jury should not conflate this case with the cases of other police officers who have killed black men in the United States and have not served any prison time, Shook said.
“Amber Guyger is a convicted felon and she will be a convicted felon for the rest of her life,” Shook said. “We know her crime has been the most publicized in this county in years. “
Guyger will be spending time in the penitentiary, Shook said. She will not be able to hide there, Shook told the jury.
“Amber Guyger has been punished,” Shook said. “She’s shown true remorse. She feels horrible for what she did to Botham Jean and she regrets it with every bit of herself. “
Witnesses on Guyger’s behalf
During the sentencing phase of the trial Wednesday, Guyger’s mother and sister testified that Amber Guyger was sexually molested by a man her mother used to date. Amber Guyger would have been about 6 when the molestation occurred, Guyger’s mother testified. That man was later convicted on the molestation charge after Arlington police were called, her mother, Karen Guyger said.
The defense called Guyger’s mother to the stand after prosecutors rested their case in the punishment phase.
The sisters had six months of counseling after the molestation occurred, Amber’s sister, Alana Guyger, said.
By the time she was 8, Guyger aspired to have a career in law enforcement, her mother testified. Amber had always been a bubbly, outgoing, friendly and extroverted person, her mother and sister testified.
The shooting left her broken.
“I got a call from Amber after the shooting,” Karen Guyger said. “I couldn’t understand her when she first told me, she was crying so hard. She wanted to take his place. She feels very bad about it.”
LaWanda Clark, 67 , testified that she was struggling with a crack addiction when she first met Amber Guyger. Guyger told Clark, an African American, that she did not fit the profile.
“I was at the house and she kept coming to me and let me know that she did not see me as a crack addict,” Clark told the jury. “She asked me what was I doing here.”
Guyger gave Clark a drug paraphernalia ticket and said that she could use the ticket one of two ways. Guyger said Clark could either continue down the road that she was traveling on or use this as her ticket out, the witness said.
Clark said she joined a program, stopped using drugs and when she graduated from the program, Amber was there at her graduation ceremony.
“She (Amber) was elated,” Clark testified. “I don’t know who was more excited. It changed my life. I have my children back. I have a job, I have a car.”
Clark said that when she heard about Botham Jean’s death and Amber’s part in it, she reached out.
“I would gets cards and different things and send them to lift her up,” Clark said. “Because at the end of the day, she’s still a human being.”
The defense rested its case in the sentencing phase about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
A path to reduce Guyger’s minimum sentence
Botham Jean’s father testified Wednesday that his son’s murder has destroyed his Sundays, but added that he tries to remain strong for the rest of his family.
Sunday is the day when Botham would text his father, Bertrum Jean, and they would exchange information about where they went to church and what they cooked for Sunday dinner.
“Sundays are not good for me anymore because I’m not hearing his voice,” Bertrum Jean said. “How could this happen to him? In hindsight, what could we have done? I’ll never see him again. It’s hard not hearing his voice.”
As the sentencing phase of the trial began on Wednesday, prosecutors told State District Judge Tammy Kemp they did not object to the jury being allowed to consider that Guyger’s actions may have been influenced by sudden passion, a finding that could potentially change her sentence from five to 99 years in prison to two to 20 years in prison.
During her closing arguments, Long told the jury to ignore the information about sudden passion.
“It does not apply here because Botham did not provoke his own death,” Long said.
For a finding of sudden passion, defense attorneys would have to show that Jean somehow provoked the shooting and also show that Jean somehow produced a degree of anger, rage, resentment, or terror “in a person of ordinary temper, sufficient to render the mind incapable of cool reflection.”
Police training is ‘woefully inadequate’
One attorney for the Jean family commented that the Guyger trial shows something that they and some others have been saying for years, that the training of Dallas police officers is woefully inadequate.
Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata declined to comment on the conviction Tuesday, saying Guyger’s lawyers asked him to wait until after sentencing. The group, which represents city police officers, has paid for Guyger’s legal defense and security.
On Tuesday during the start of the sentencing phase, state prosecutors exhibited several text message conversations from Guyger’s cell phone intended to show the former police officer lacked sensitivity toward black people. The judge allowed the text messages to be introduced as evidence despite defense attorneys’ objections.
One conversation showed Guyger talking about working a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in January 2018. She received a text asking when the parade would end.
“When MLK is dead. . . Oh wait. . .” Guyger replied.
She groused that the parade could take up to three hours and suggested that parade participants could be pushed or pepper sprayed.
Another text conversation on Sept. 4, 2018, two days before Guyger shot Jean, was with someone asking if she wanted a German Shepherd dog. The person wrote the dog “may be racist.”
“It’s okay. . .I’m the same,” Guyger texted back.
In a text message conversation between Gugyer and her partner, Dallas police officer Martin Rivera, Rivera said he was in an area with five black officers.
“Not racist but damn,” he texted.
Guyger replied, “Not racist but just have a different way of working and it shows.”
The state also showed some of the posts Guyger saved on her Pinterest, one of which said, ‘Stay low, go fast/ Kill first, die last/ One shot, one kill/ No luck, all skill.” Another meme said, “People are so ungrateful. No one ever thanks me for having the patience not to kill them.”
Pinterest is a social media network in which users can save posts and photos made by others.
According to the Washington Post database, 678 people have been shot and killed by police officers so far in 2019, and 21 percent, or 144 have been black. In 2018, there were 992 fatal police shootings and 23 percent, or 229 were black, the database shows.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 2, 2019 at 11:39 AM.
