Ex-Officer Who Killed Neighbor Wants Her Murder Conviction Overturned

Amber Guyger is asking that the three-judge court throw out her murder conviction or, alternately, instead find her guilty of the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.

The former Dallas police officer who shot and killed her neighbor inside his apartment, mistaking it for her own, is seeking to have her murder conviction overturned and 10-year prison sentence reversed. Amber Guyger's September 2018 shooting of Botham Jean was a justifiable act of self-defense, her attorney said in a brief filed to a Texas appeals court, because she believed the 26-year-old man was an intruder in her home. The lawyer acknowledged that the consequences were "tragic," but insisted that the ex-officer "acted reasonably" based on her mistaken belief. "Although she intentionally and knowingly caused Jean's death," wrote attorney Michael Mowla, "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." The attorney made his case Tuesday during an appearance before Texas's 5fth Court of Appeals, during which prosecutors argued that the conviction should be upheld. The hearing came about a year and a half after jurors convicted Guyger in the high-profile trial and sentenced her to a decade in prison - a punishment on the low end of the up to 99 years she could have received. Prosecutors had sought 28 years.