REGIONAL: Texas Court upholds murder conviction of police officer, who shot St. Lucian national

SOURCE: CMC- The Texas state appeals court has upheld a murder conviction against an ex-Dallas police officer who was accused of fatally shooting the St. Lucian-born, Botham Jean, in his apartment in 2018.

On September 6, 2018, off-duty Dallas Police Department patrol officer Amber Guyger entered the apartment of the 26-year-old Jean and fatally shot him.

During her trial, Guyger claimed that she had entered the apartment believing it was her own and that she shot Jean believing he was a burglar. Jean, an accountant, was a graduate of Harding University and was buried in his homeland.

Guyger  was found guilty of murdering the St. Lucian on October 1, 2019, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

On October 16, 2019, Guyger’s attorneys filed a notice of appeal requesting a new trial and on August 7, last year they filed an appeal, alleging that insufficient evidence existed to convict her of murder.

The appeal sought either an acquittal, or a reduction in charge to criminally negligent homicide with a new hearing for sentencing on the reduced charge.

But prosecutors countered that she “intended to kill” Jean, noting “she shot him in the chest while he was sitting on his own couch eating ice cream.”

On Thursday, the Fifth Texas Court of Appeals upheld Guyger’s murder conviction, unanimously holding that the jury verdict was reasonable and Guyger’s own testimony supported the murder charge

In its ruling, the three-judge panel said there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict. The panel said it was “undisputed” that Guyger intended to kill Jean because that’s what she testified in court.

However, “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 Media reports said that Guyger can still appeal the ruling to the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals, in a case that had garnered national attention given the circumstances around Jean’s killing.

In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed “Botham Jean Act” into law requiring officers’ body cameras to be activated through the entirety of an investigation that involves them.