Amber Guyger’s defense says she was on autopilot the night she shot Botham Jean in ‘innocent’ mistake – The Dallas Morning News

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Updated at 3 p.m.: Revised to include opening statements from Guyger’s defense team.

Amber Guyger missed many chances to realize she’d parked on the wrong floor of her apartment complex before she shot Botham Jean in his home, a prosecutor told jurors during opening statements of Guyger’s murder trial.

But her defense attorney said she was simply on autopilot the night of the shooting — that she had made an “awful and tragic, but innocent” mistake.

Guyger, 31, was an off-duty Dallas police officer who was still in uniform when she killed Jean at the South Side Flats near downtown. She says she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own the night of Sept. 6, 2018, and thought he was a burglar.

Minutes before the shooting, after she’d pulled into the parking garage, Guyger was carrying on a conversation with her partner — with whom she had a sexual relationship.

Throughout that day, Guyger and Officer Martin Rivera had been texting about meeting later that evening, after her shift ended. She wrote that she was “super horny today,” lead prosecutor Jason Hermus told jurors.

Just before the shooting, she sent him a Snapchat message that said, “Wanna touch?”

Guyger had been on the phone with Rivera as she drove home. At one point, after she pulled into the parking garage, she pulled over to continue the conversation. At 9:55 p.m., the call ended.

At that point, Jean had “less than three minutes to live,” Hermus said.

Fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger (center) arrives for the first day of her murder trial in the 204th District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas on Monday. Guyger shot and killed Botham Jean, an unarmed 26-year-old neighbor in his own apartment last year. She told police she thought his apartment was her own and that he was an intruder.
Fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger (center) arrives for the first day of her murder trial in the 204th District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas on Monday. Guyger shot and killed Botham Jean, an unarmed 26-year-old neighbor in his own apartment last year. She told police she thought his apartment was her own and that he was an intruder. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

He said Guyger had failed to spot many clues that should have shown her she was on the wrong floor.

She had worked a long shift that day — 13.5 hours — before she left the police substation where she worked about 9:30 p.m. But Hermus made a point to say that Guyger spent several hours of her shift indoors at Dallas police headquarters, where she and a few other officers had taken three suspects for an interview.

“I don’t want to give the impression that she was running around chasing criminals all day,” said Hermus, who stood in front of jurors but glanced at Guyger at times.

Guyger parked on the fourth floor, backing into a spot in her white Dodge pickup, Hermus said. Then she missed several clues, he said.

One of Guyger’s neighbors, for example, had a large decorative planter outside her third-floor apartment, Hermus said, but no such thing was on the fourth floor. Lighted signs displayed the apartment numbers outside each unit.

“She walks past 16 different apartments and fails to register the number 4 on any one of them,” Hermus said.

He held up a bright red doormat that Jean had outside his door. Guyger, on the other hand, had no mat — only gray concrete outside her door, Hermus said.

Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus shows a photo of Botham Jean to the jury during his opening statement Monday.
Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus shows a photo of Botham Jean to the jury during his opening statement Monday. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

She entered Jean’s apartment through an unlocked door. Once inside, Hermus said, she missed more clues.

He said Guyger failed to notice the smell of marijuana in Jean’s apartment. Presumably, hers did not smell of marijuana, he said. And her apartment was neat, Hermus said. Jean’s was cluttered and missing a large table near the entryway that hers had.

He said Guyger made a series of unreasonable errors that led to Jean’s death.

“For her errors, for her omissions, Bo paid the ultimate price,” Hermus said.

Guyger, seated next to one of her attorneys, Toby Shook, appeared to be watching Hermus as he spoke, with her head turned slightly to the left.

Hermus noted that Guyger sent two texts to Rivera while she was on the phone with 911. One said, “I need you … hurry,” and the other said, “I f—– up.”

Guyger was outside Jean’s apartment when first responders arrived.

“She should have made it her point of existence to take care of that man,” Hermus told jurors.

Following a break after the prosecution’s opening statements, Guyger’s attorney Robert Rogers described the 31-year-old as a dedicated officer who had dreamed as a young girl of joining the police force.

He told jurors that Guyger had “firmly and reasonably” believed that she was in her own apartment the night she killed Jean.

Fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger (right) listens to Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus (not pictured) delivers the grand jury charge against her before his opening statement in the 204th District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas, Monday, September 23, 2019.
Fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger (right) listens to Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus (not pictured) delivers the grand jury charge against her before his opening statement in the 204th District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas, Monday, September 23, 2019. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

Rogers described the South Side Flats apartment complex as confusing and said most residents got around “by feel.” He said more than 90 residents had reported unintentionally parking on the wrong floor.

He said prosecutors’ suggestion that Guyger was planning to meet Rivera after she got home was false. The two flirted with each other “all the time,” but they hadn’t had a sexual encounter in months and Guyger was “trying to move on,” Rogers said.

“What was going through Amber’s mind was just, ‘I’m going home,’ ” he said. “‘I’m done with my day of work, I’m exhausted and I’m going home.’”

She was “on autopilot” when she parked on the fourth floor of the parking garage. She did not note that her neighbor’s decorative planter was not on the fourth floor, nor did she note the floor mats, Rogers said.

“She’s tired, she’s almost home, she’s walking the same way she’s always walked,” Rogers said.

Once she entered Jean’s apartment, Guyger believed she was confronting a burglar, Rogers said.

“She’s trying to process this as she’s stepping into her apartment and at the same time, I’m sure Mr. Jean is thinking, ‘What is this person doing? Who is coming into my apartment?’ ” Rogers said. He’s confused, he’s wondering what’s going on. She’s thinking, ‘Why is this man in my apartment?’ ”

Members of the media wait to get into Judge Tammy Kemp's courtroom for the beginning of the trial. The Fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger is facing a murder charge in the 204th District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas, Monday, September 23, 2019.
Members of the media wait to get into Judge Tammy Kemp’s courtroom for the beginning of the trial. The Fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger is facing a murder charge in the 204th District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas, Monday, September 23, 2019. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

He said Guyger had tunnel vision, so she wasn’t noticing the differences between her apartment and Jean’s.

Rogers said Guyger started to say “Hands!” but Jean drowned her out, yelling “Hey, hey!”

“Why is he yelling at me? Why is he coming at me? Why is the display of my gun not working? He must have a weapon,” Rogers said, describing Guyger’s thought process. “He must want to kill me because I caught him burglarizing my apartment, and he’s getting closer.”

After she fired her gun twice, striking Jean once in the chest, Guyger walked over to where he lay bleeding, Rogers said.

“It starts to dawn on her as she approaches Mr. Jean’s body what a horrible, horrible mistake she has just made,” Rogers said.

In response to prosecutors’ suggestions that Guyger should have been tending to Jean while on the phone with 911, Rogers said Guyger knew she couldn’t physically help him and believed his best chance at survival was to get emergency medical services to him.

He acknowledged that she did text Rivera, her partner, while on the phone with 911, calling him her “rock.”

He told jurors that prosecutors wanted to hold Guyger to an “impossible standard.”

“They are holding her and twisting and turning and making things that are innocent mistakes into evil acts,” he said.

The trial got underway about 12:30 p.m., after more than two hours of delays because of a pretrial hearing.

The defense questioned whether Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot violated a gag order by discussing the case in an interview with KDFW-TV (Channel 4).

Judge Tammy Kemp is visibly upset about the defense presentation of evidence that Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot gave an interview about the trial when a gag order was in place. The interview aired Sunday night.
Judge Tammy Kemp is visibly upset about the defense presentation of evidence that Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot gave an interview about the trial when a gag order was in place. The interview aired Sunday night. (Tom Fox / AP)

In the interview, which aired Sunday night, Creuzot spoke about whether Guyger should have been charged with manslaughter or murder based on the facts of the case. He told the station that murder was the appropriate charge.

“And so this issue of manslaughter that it was manslaughter — I wrote no, this is more appropriately a murder case based on the facts as reported,” Creuzot said in the short clip. “I’ve studied what we have and I feel comfortable going forward on it, but I don’t have any idea as to how it will end up.”

Judge Tammy Kemp was visibly frustrated to learn of the interview, shaking her head. A gag order in the case prevents prosecutors and the defense from publicly discussing the case.

Guyger’s defense moved to renew their motion to change the venue for the trial and asked for a mistrial, which Kemp denied. She questioned the 12 jurors and four alternate jurors individually about Creuzot’s interview. All told Kemp they had not seen it or any media coverage about the case since they were chosen as jurors. The jury will be sequestered for the entire trial.

Earlier in the morning, prosecutors asked the judge to allow them to admit evidence including text messages Guyger sent to her partner the day of the shooting, which was later presented during opening statements.

Guyger and Rivera had been in a relationship for about a year that “ebbed and flowed.” It had been ramping back up around September, Hermus said.

Eight women and four men make up the jury, and all four alternates are women. The jury, selected more than a week ago, won’t have to decide whether Guyger killed Jean, a 26-year-old accountant from St. Lucia. That is not in dispute. Instead, the jurors will listen to the evidence and decide whether Guyger’s killing of Jean was a crime.

Amber Guyger and Botham Jean
Amber Guyger and Botham Jean(Mesquite Police Department and Instagram)

And if it was a crime, is it murder? Or a lesser charge such as manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide?

Guyger’s attorneys are expected to argue she made a “mistake of fact”: believing that she was in her apartment and that she needed to defend herself from someone she thought was a burglar.

If jurors believe a “reasonable” person could have made that mistake, Guyger could be found not guilty of murder. If they don’t, they could find her guilty. If the jury does find Guyger not guilty of murder, they would then deliberate the lesser charges.

Murder is punishable by up to life in prison. Criminally negligent homicide is punishable by up to two years in a state jail.

Jean worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers after graduating from Harding University in Arkansas. He was buried in a cemetery by the sea in St. Lucia the same day Dallas police Chief U. Reneé Hall fired Guyger.

Jean, who loved to sing and was a song leader in his church, dreamed of returning to St. Lucia and becoming prime minister.

Guyger was originally arrested on a manslaughter charge, but a Dallas County grand jury indicted her for murder. Dallas attorneys who are not involved with the case say murder is the appropriate charge because, in Texas, manslaughter is a reckless act and she intended to pull the trigger.

State District Judge Tammy Kemp is presiding over Amber Guyger's murder trial.
State District Judge Tammy Kemp is presiding over Amber Guyger’s murder trial.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

Guyger is free on bond during the trial. She posted a $200,000 bond when she turned herself in on the murder charge and a $300,000 bond when she was arrested previously on a manslaughter charge.

The trial is expected to last two weeks. The jurors were told to pack a suitcase with enough clothes for two weeks — or one if they wanted to do laundry.

They won’t have access to their phones during the trial, Kemp told them during jury selection.

Listen to The Dallas Morning News special audio report, The Death of Botham Jean: Amber Guyger on Trial

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Read more about Amber Guyger and Botham Jean.

Source Article from https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2019/09/23/amber-guyger-s-defense-says-she-was-on-autopilot-the-night-she-shot-botham-jean-in-innocent-mistake/

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