Posted on 10/01/2019 8:55:22 AM PDT by CaptainK
Amber Guyer guilty of murder, Just announced on FOX News
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“Look at that guy that got convicted in the Charlottesville thing. He got something like 455 years in prison!”
With good behavior, he will be out right after his 377th birthday.
“This verdict is for Trayvon Martin," he said, "it’s for Michael Brown, it’s for Sandra Bland, it’s for Tamir Rice, it’s for Eric Garner, it’s for Antwon Rose, it’s for Jemel Roberson, for EJ Bradford, for Stephon Clark, for Jeffrey Dennis, Genevieve Dawes, for Pamela Turner.”
Seems like there may be some overwrought emotion here. Her trial had nothing to do with any of those other cases, but if the Jury was tainted with the belief that they needed to convict her because they think justice wasn't done in those other cases, it would quite likely give her grounds for appeal.
She may have entered the apartment mistakenly, but there is no way to present the rest of the story as any things other than intentional homicide. Even if we play word games, and say she intended to stop a perceived threat, she still intentionally drew her weapon, pointed and fired at the deceased. He’s dead. In his living room where he had every right to be(and to shoot her dead for entering and presenting an unlawful lethal threat, btw). In such circumstances, only one , only one actor at a time can legally declare self defense, the other by definition must be an unlawful aggressor.
Using the combination defense of a mistake of fact and then expecting a self defense claim was really asking the jury to go for a ride in irrational thinking.
The jury found her guilty of knowingly and intentionally killing Mr. Jean, unlawfully, murder.
It appears that she can claim sudden passion as a mitigating factor in the sentencing phase, and the judge had a wide range of time to consider, 5-99.
As I have stated all along, every aspect of the case is moot except for her act of shooting Mr Jean. It was unlawful and Justice is served.
Reminder to all who live under arms in a civilian context (and yes, cops are civilians), the lethal force equation must hinge on you being no where the wrong before the thought of standing and delivering begins.
It was proven he was moving from his living room towards the kitchen/entry area. THAT could be a perceived threat!
Like I said, every time a cop pulls his trigger, he should be tried for MURDER, according to you and many others. The ONLY thing that matters is that he intended to pull the trigger and kill the perp. Everything else seems to be immaterial to what you WANT to be the meaning of “intent.”
Regardless of what she was thinking was happening, she committed murder. There is an appeal to reduce the severity of the murder conviction. Per TX law:
At the punishment stage of a trial, the defendant may raise the issue as to whether he caused the death under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause. If the defendant proves the issue in the affirmative by a preponderance of the evidence, the offense is a felony of the second degree.Murder (Felony in the 2nd Degree) is 2-10 years, the same as Manslaughter. "Passion" here, doesn't mean finding your wife with another man. She can certainly argue that she acted "under the immediate influence of sudden passion". I think that is preferable to Manslaughter. Still, her callousness AFTER the shooting will likely hurt her case.
If one decides to use a self defense defense, it stands to reason that one intended to stop(kill if need be). It wouldn’t make sense to use lethal force and then declare it was not intended to be lethal if necessary...
You are literally the ONLY person saying this (over and over again). If a cop kills a person, and it is found to be justified, it is still HOMICIDE, but not MURDER. If the killing is NOT justifiable, then it is a crime and should be treated as such regardless of whether or not the shooter is LEO.
Clearly, this shooting was NOT justifiable.
That’s a lot of ifs and you cannot base an appeal on an if.
Amber is going down.
You obviously have not been reading all of the responses on this thread.
People have stated that she intended to pull the trigger and therefore she is guilty of “intent.”
If that is the only level of requirement for MURDER, then every single cop that intends to pull the trigger is guilty of MURDER and should be charged as such! Every person who intends to pull the trigger against a home intruder is guilty of MURDER and should be charged as such! All other circumstances do not matter; the only thing that matter is that the person intended to pull the trigger to kill!
I am trying to demonstrate the STUPIDITY of these overly simplistic arguments! The circumstances around the shooting is very important. Just pulling the trigger is NOT intent, as in mens rea!
You can have your opinion and I can have mine. Based on everything I saw, this was manslaughter, at worst, and criminal negligent homicide, at best. But this was NOT “murder.”
"Threat" is in the eye of the beholder. What looks like a threat to a 5'1" scrawny woman may not look like a threat to you. It looks like she overreacted.
She lied about him presenting a threat, she lied about doing CPR, she deleted evidence from her phone. That sure seems like a guilty mind.
I'm not sure you are grasping this "guilty mind" thing. You have to have criminal intent before the crime. Trying to cover up in a panic after has no bearing on your intent prior to the incident. If she was lying, and i'm not characterizing it the way you are, then she might be guilty of perjury or something, but it would be a separate crime.
Mind you, this was obviously not pre-meditated, but she made a series of poor judgement calls, going all the way back to adultery...
Yes she did, but the adultery is not germane to the fact of her having shot a man because she was frightened of him when she saw him in what she thought was her apartment.
(which she let distract her from paying attention to her surroundings),
Very likely.
and all the way up to not paying attention to her surroundings,
I do not know how closely her surroundings resembled her actual apartment. I've read from others that some of these apartments are furnished with similar furniture, so I don't know how much that comes into play here.
and ending with her ignoring all of her police training/experience
She didn't ignore it all. Cops are taught to shoot center of mass, and she certainly did that. I'm sure she was startled, and you can't expect everyone to react perfectly according to "training" every single time they are surprised.
and deciding that an innocent young man had to die.
And here you are imputing motives that are not accurate at all. She had no knowledge of him being an "innocent young man", and therefore she did not shoot what she believed to be an innocent young man. That would in fact be criminal intent.
She shot someone whom she believed to be a criminal who had broken into her apartment and whom she thought was dangerous. He wasn't, and it wasn't her apartment, but let us keep it accurate about what she thought and not invent things she didn't think so that we can accuse her of them.
And that jury was allowed to find her guilty of murder. Argue it all you want, but that's Texas law.
And i'm thinking here is the sticking point. Texas law appears to be written in a manner that does not correspond to what many of us believe is the norm for this sort of accidental killing.
Texas law appears to be capable of applying the term "murder" to something that was an accident, while the laws of other states would regard this as "manslaughter" or unjustifiable homicide.
"Murder" implies a deliberate intent to kill someone who is innocent, while her intent was to kill someone she thought was guilty of a felony.
"Murder" doesn't fit in the normal usage of the word, but "manslaughter, unjustifiable homicide, reckless homicide and accidental homicide seem more accurate.
But it looks like this is a quirk of Texas law to call it "Murder."
What she was thinking has quite a lot of bearing on whether or not she committed "murder" in the normal understanding of the word. Again, "mens rea." The normal principle of law is that you have to have bad intent.
At the punishment stage of a trial, the defendant may raise the issue as to whether he caused the death under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause. If the defendant proves the issue in the affirmative by a preponderance of the evidence, the offense is a felony of the second degree.
And this is likely how the law is going to work out in Texas.
Murder (Felony in the 2nd Degree) is 2-10 years, the same as Manslaughter.
Which probably makes this splitting of hairs a pointless argument. What you call it isn't going to make much difference if the punishment is the same.
Still, some of us can be sticklers for words having understood meanings that we all agree upon.
"Murder" implies criminal intent. So far as I can tell, she had no "criminal intent." No "mens rea."
Still, her callousness AFTER the shooting will likely hurt her case.
Yeah. She probably couldn't have done anything useful, but she should have at least tried to do something she thought might be helpful.
She should go to prison. In older times, it would probably be for life, or very near it, but nowadays the modern sentencing seems to be ridiculously lenient.
I guesstimate she will get 5-20, but nowadays there is no telling. She might get a worse sentence than an actual premeditated murderer.
This thing is quite political.
I say 15-20 years.
I think this is a good way to put it. Under Texas law, there are only 3 components required for Murder. Really, just 2, as #3 is an 'or'.
(1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual;So now, we decide if it's reduced to a second degree felony, which will still be called 'murder', but be treated like manslaughter.(2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual; or
(3) commits or attempts to commit a felony, other than manslaughter, and in the course of and in furtherance of the commission or attempt, or in immediate flight from the commission or attempt, he commits or attempts to commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.
Mr. Jean could anything including shoot her and he would still be an innocent person in his castle.
A person doing something that he has a right to do, in a place where it is lawful to be done, can not be seen as in the wrong.
To acquit her would be to blame Mr Jean. To convict of negligent homicide would make it an accident or unintentional act, the facts simply support the verdict of murder(not premeditated).
I actually trust Texas more than other states to meet out some justice.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
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