Photo courtesy of ABC News
Texas’s highest criminal court has denied former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger’s appeal, upholding the murder conviction and 10-year prison sentence.
The Court of Appeals declined to hear Guyger’s petition Wednesday to review a lower court’s ruling in 2019 when she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fatally shooting Botham Jean, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Two Justices — Kevin Yeary and Judge Michelle Slaughter, filed a dissent to deny Guyger’s motion after arguing that she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own.
The shooting happened in September 2018 after Guyger, who lived on the floor above Jean, walked into his apartment and shot him multiple times, thinking he was an intruder.
While Guyger was fired from the Dallas Police Department weeks after the killing, she was initially arrested on a manslaughter charge. However, a grand jury later voted to indict the former police officer on a murder charge.
Since the appellate jurisdiction finalizes criminal cases, Guyger has exhausted the appeal process to overturn her conviction and sentence after multiple failed attempts.
According to News Onyx, Guyger filed a second appeal in November to overturn the conviction and murder sentence when the Texas appeals court denied
her.Guyger’s lawyers argued that “the evidence was legally insufficient to support the jury’s rejection of her self-defense claim.” They also suggested that the prosecution did not correctly demonstrate that Guyger did not believe she was in her apartment or that Jean was an actual intruder, CBS DFW reported.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said his office expected the court’s decision, “and we are pleased that the sentence is finalized at this point and will be carried out according to the law.”
Creuzot responded to the original appeal with a statement regarding Guyger’s actions at the time of the shooting, “When intending to kill, you shoot an unarmed man in the chest while he’s sitting on his couch eating ice cream. That’s murder regardless of where you think you are when you do it.”
Guyger will continue to serve her 10-year-sentence in Mountain View State Prison in Gatesville. She is up for parole in 2024.