The punishment phase of the Amber Guyger murder trial has ended with a 12 member jury unanimously handing down a ten year sentence to the former Dallas police officer who fatally shot Botham Shem Jean on September 6, 2018.
Guyger was off duty but still in uniform when she went into Jean’s apartment at South Side Flats. She told investigators she believed she was walking into her own apartment and shot Jean believing he was an intruder.
Guyger’s defense team called on witnesses including her mother, friends and sister when the hearing resumed in a bid to win sympathy.Emotional testimony from the family of victim Botham Jean and revelations that she shared racist and offensive texts and social media posts were also heard during the punishment phase.
The ten year sentence was met with much outrage outside of the courtroom with supporters calling the number of years“a joke and a slap in the face of a family that can’t visit their son again.”Others compared the sentence to the number of years a drug dealer (34) would receive in Dallas. “We are all hurt by this sentence” one irate protester exclaimed.
Jurors were to decide on Guyger’s sentence, which ranged from five to 99 years.