Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger knows a thing or two about someone being shot down.
The Dallas Morning News reported on Monday:
The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to review the case of former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for the murder of Botham Jean in his apartment.
The high court’s refusal to hear Guyger’s case upholds her 2019 conviction and sentence. Through a series of appeals, Guyger argued her mistaken belief that she was in her own apartment should negate her culpability for murder.
The Supreme Court did not vote on the merits of her argument. Guyger’s defense lawyer, Michael Mowla, did not respond to a request for comment.
This was Guyger’s last-ditch effort to get someone wearing a black judge’s robe to hear her appeal. According to the Dallas Morning News, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas also declined to review her case this year. The last court to hear her case, the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas, rejected her argument last year. She is eligible for parole in 2024.
Jean, a 26-year-old risk assurance associate in PwC’s Dallas office, was fatally shot in his South Side Flats apartment on Sept. 6, 2018 by Guyger, who had just gotten off shift and told authorities that she mistook his apartment for hers. She believed her apartment was being burglarized. Guyger lived in an apartment one floor directly below Jean’s apartment and had told authorities she parked on the wrong level of the South Side Flats apartment complex’s garage—the fourth floor instead of the third, where her apartment was located.
Guyger was arrested and charged with manslaughter on Sept. 9, three days after she shot and killed Jean. Guyger was released from jail on $300,000 bond. The Dallas Police Department fired Guyger on Sept. 24 for engaging in adverse conduct. She had worked at the department for nearly five years.
After two days of hearing evidence in late November, a Dallas County grand jury on Nov. 30 upgraded Guyger’s charge from manslaughter to murder. She turned herself in to authorities that afternoon and was released on $200,000 bond.
A jury of eight women and four men sentenced Guyger to 10 years in prison on Oct. 2, 2019 for killing Jean, a day after the jurors convicted her of murder.
You can find all of our coverage of Botham Jean’s murder here.
U.S. Supreme Court rejects request to review ex-Dallas cop Amber Guyger’s murder case [Dallas Morning News]