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Former Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger Set To Appeal Sentence For 2018 Botham Jean Murder

According to a report from CBS, former Dallas Police officer Amber Guyger, the officer who is serving a 10-year sentence for the murder of 26-year-old Botham Jean in his own apartment, is set to have her appeal heard by a judge next week.

Guyger filed an appeal last summer that contains the legal basis for her appealing the conviction, which will be heard by a three-person panel. Guyger’s attorneys believe that the former officer should be found guilty of criminally negligent homicide instead of murder, which carries a much lesser sentence.

In Guyger’s appeal, her lawyers stated, “The evidence was legally insufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Guyger committed murder because (1) through mistake, Guyger formed a reasonable belief about a matter of fact—that she entered her apartment and there was an intruder inside—and (2) her mistaken belief negated the culpability for Murder because although she intentionally and knowingly caused Jean’s death, she had the right to act in deadly force in self-defense since her belief that deadly force was immediately necessary was reasonable under the circumstances.”

On September 6, 2018, Jean, an accountant for Price Waterhouse Coopers, was shot and killed by Guyger, who was actually his neighbor that lived in the apartment directly under Jean, shot him while he ate ice cream on his couch. Guyger claimed that she thought it was her apartment and Jean was an intruder.

In October 2019, a jury unanimously convicted Guyger of murder.

Jean’s sister Allisa Findley spoke about Guyger’s appeal, saying, “Jean was doing nothing wrong on the day he was murdered. Jean was sitting in his own apartment, minding his own business. I feel like she received a slap on the wrist for taking my brother’s life. This tells me that she feels like she didn’t do anything wrong.”