*The tragedy surrounding the 2018 death of Dallas resident Botham Jean at the hands of former DPD officer Amber Guyger is the attempt by some to dehumanize Jean, a man shot by Guyger in his own home, to save Guyger, a white police officer.
Last week, a Texas appeals court ruled that Guyger is to continue serving her 10-year sentence for murder.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the former Dallas police officer and her attorneys were hoping the court would instead convict her of criminally negligent homicide–a charge that comes with a maximum sentence of only two years.
Guyger’s appeal argued that because she believed she was in her own apartment and that Jean was an intruder, it was reasonable for her to use deadly force in an act of self-defense.
The Fifth District Court of Appeals disagreed with this premise.
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The justices also did not agree that evidence supported a conviction of criminally negligent homicide rather than murder, and they pointed to Guyger’s own testimony that she intended to kill.
“That she was mistaken as to Jean’s status as a resident in his own apartment or a burglar in hers does not change her mental state from intentional or knowing to criminally negligent,” the judges wrote. “We decline to rely on Guyger’s misperception of the circumstances leading to her mistaken beliefs as a basis to reform the jury’s verdict in light of the direct evidence of her intent to kill.”
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