Amber Guyger Sentencing: She Faces Up To 99 Years In Prison After Receiving Guilty Verdict
The castle doctrine is the legal notion that your home is your castle, and you have the right to use lethal force to defend it. But on Tuesday, a Texas jury confirmed that the statute protects homeowners against intruders - not the other way around.
When Tammy Kemp, the African-American District Judge presiding over Amber Guyger’s murder trial, allowed the castle doctrine to be considered, many believed the ex-Dallas police officer would be found not guilty of murdering Botham Jean, the unarmed Black man whose apartment she mistakenly entered, thinking it was her own.
Upon seeing Jean sitting on the couch, eating ice cream and watching TV, Guyger claimed she thought he was an intruder and she shot and killed Jean in “self defense.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Guyger was found guilty of murder, facing up to 99 years in prison. According to Buzzfeed, the jury in this case was made up of five Black people, four Latinx, two white people, and one Asian person. The verdict is a rare instance of a police officer, specifically a white officer, being held responsible for killing a Black person.
On the second day of deliberations, the jury rejected Guyger’s defense that she thought she was entering her own apartment and acted in self-defense against an intruder. Guyger’s apartment was in the same building, the South Side Flats apartment complex. At the time, Guyger was off-duty, but still in uniform.
The jury had the option of either finding her innocent of any crime – possibly citing the castle doctrine – finding her guilty of manslaughter or finding her guilty of murder. In the end, they chose justice.
According to the New York Times, when the courtroom doors opened on Tuesday, chants erupted as supporters of Botham Jean’s family repeated the verdict aloud and shouted “Black lives matter!”
At a post-verdict news conference, attorneys for Jean’s family recited the names of other Black people who have been killed by the police in recent years, including Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. They also hoped that this latest verdict would be a turning point for racial justice and police reform.
Said Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the Jean family, “For so many unarmed Black and brown human beings across America, this verdict today is for them.”
However, according to the New York Times, while Guyger faces a maximum sentence of 99 years, she could be sentenced to as little as five years.
RECENT FAILURES OF JUSTICE:
Michael Brown and Tamir Rice are two police-involved shootings in which the officers involved suffered minimal consequences. Brown’s killer, officer Darren Wilson, was never charged with any crime, while the officer who gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Timothy Loehmann, was never even indicted by a grand jury.
In some cases, including that of Eric Garner, the officer responsible for killing an unarmed Black man was not only not charged, but able to remain on desk duty and paid by their department. It took five years for officer, Daniel Pantaleo, to be relieved of his duty with the NYPD. He strangled 43-year-old Garner by using an illegal chokehold.
The most recent example of an officer being convicted of wrongdoing happened in April, however that involved a Black officer who was found guilty of killing a white woman, who phoned law enforcement over what she believed was a sexual assault happening nearby. Mohamed Noor would be convicted of murdering Justine Damond and became the first officer in Minnesota history to ever be convicted of an on-duty shooting death of a citizen.
The Noor verdict came almost two years after the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile was found not guilty of all charges against him. That tragic incident, also in Minnesota, was caught on video with Castile informing the officer who pulled him over, that he had a legal firearm. While reaching for identification, he was shot and killed, anyway.
Social media was elated that justice was served in Botham Jean’s case. The reaction indicates the long-standing failures of American justice. See what some had to say, below:
