Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger asks appeals court to throw out murder conviction for killing Botham Jean

Guyger testified at her 2019 trial that after working long hours on September 6, 2018, she returned to her Dallas apartment complex. In uniform but off duty, she approached what she thought was her apartment. She noticed the door was partially open, saw a man inside who she believed to be an intruder and fired her service weapon, killing him.

She was actually at the apartment directly above hers — where Jean, a 26-year-old PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant, lived. Prosecutors said Jean had been on the couch in his shorts, watching TV and eating vanilla ice cream when Guyger walked in and fatally shot him.

In October 2019, a jury found Guyger guilty of murdering Jean and sentenced her to 10 years in prison.

Guyger’s defense claims there was insufficient evidence to convict her of murder. The defense has asked the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas to either acquit Guyger of that charge or make a finding of criminally negligent homicide — which carries a punishment of six months to two years — and hold a new hearing on the punishment.