What was in it for her to murder a black guy in his own home this time?
It is interesting that there is an entirely separate construction of the crime that also leads to murder in the form of “felony murder.” She committed burglary “a) A person commits an offense if, without the effective consent of the owner, the person (3) enters a building or habitation and commits or attempts to commit a felony, theft, or an assault.” (what she did was clearly at least an assault). This is a felony “(c) Except as provided in Subsection (c-1) or (d), an offense under this section is a: (2) felony of the second degree if committed in a habitation.” Her killing him then qualifies as felony murder “Sec. 19.02. MURDER. b) A person commits an offense if he: (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.”
While this one is generally harder to get to stick so I understand why the prosecution wouldn’t pursue this angle, it does highlight how absurd the claim of justification for shooting someone while breaking into their house is. (Note that Texas law agrees that one can’t invoke self-defense to justify felony murder, or indeed any use of force while one is committing a crime; one can claim self defense only if one “(3) was not otherwise engaged in criminal activity, other than a Class C misdemeanor that is a violation of a law or ordinance regulating traffic at the time the force was used.”)
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.30.htm
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.19.htm
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm#9.31
My understanding is she had no choice except to answer in the affirmative. If she has answered that she did not intend to kill him, that would open her up to having to answer the question, “Well, if you did not intend to kill him, why was your service weapon drawn?” As there is no answer you can give to that question that doesn’t make you sound like an idiot, it’s best to just say yes to the first one and take your lumps.
IMO, this is one of the horribly misguided tenets of modern police training. That is, an officer should never unholster their weapon unless they intend to kill another human. I am willing to accept that this attitude is meant prevent officers from brandishing or otherwise use their weapon to endanger or otherwise threaten people. Unfortunately, I believe, this attitude is interpreted as “if you unholster your weapon, you had better use it.” Another one is that you do not shoot someone you do not intend to kill. Sounds good, except its interpretation gets turned to “If you don’t kill someone you shoot, that proves that you didn’t really need to shoot them, but if you kill them, its your word against a dead man’s.”
Now, I may very well be wrong that these attitudes are prevalent among US police forces, as they are only based on what I have seen on TV (and, as my wife likes to remind me, nothing on TV is what it appears). The truth is, however, that we are training our police officers to kill other humans. If we would spend as much training them not to kill as we do on how to kill, the overall violence in the US would drop dramatically.
I am not an LEO and do not have firsthand information about LEO training. But I have heard anecdotally (various self-proclaimed LEOs in various Internet places) that police are trained that if they shoot, shoot at the center of the target to remove the threat. As a consequence, this generally will result in the death of the target. But I have no cite. Do you have a cite for “never unholster their weapon unless they intend to kill another human”? I would think that unholstering a weapon is preparatory and if a suspect becomes compliant at that point there is no need to shoot.
It’s usually phrased as “don’t draw your weapon unless you are prepared to use it.” That’s an important difference from “intend to use it.” You can draw your weapon with every intention of trying to deescalate, but you still need to be prepared to shoot if other options don’t work.
If I am ever asked this question in court I will reply, “My intent was to stop him, not kill him.”
Any death is incidental.
At your next murder trial, do yourself a favour and leave out the last “incidental” bit. It sounds waaaay too “B movie, cliché evil genius witty remark #4”
Agree. And that’s why I left it out of the quotes.
Smart cookie 
While undergoing prosecution your cliché evil genius witty remarks are ALWAYS best left restricted for your inner monologues. [sup]Oh, have I sooo learned that lesson the hard way…[/sup]
…goddamnit!
Apparently all the hugging during and after the sentencing is generating some controversy.
First the 18-year-old brother of the victim told the murderer that he forgave her, and then he hugged her. Most folks seem OK with that, it’s his right to forgive her for his own losses, whatever he may deem those to be.
Then the judge gets off the bench, hugs the mother of the victim, and then hugs the murderer and gives her some quick religious instruction about what to read in the bible.
That seems to have rubbed some folks the wrong way. Including me, as it happens.
Several posters have commented that she’ll never get a gun again.
Ain’t necessarily so.
The federal gun prohibition works differently depending whether you’re a federal felon or a state felon.
If you’re a federal felon, the prohibition applies for life unless you get a pardon.
If you’re a state felon, the federal prohibition can be waived if state law allows for a waiver. And the federal statute doesn’t put any conditions on how rigorous the state waiver had to be.
States are increasingly loosening their felony prohibition laws to make it easier for state felons to get their right to guns back under state law, and thus under federal law as well, sometimes without even needing a judicial hearing.
So, whether she’ll get her guns back will depend on how strict Texas law is on this point. If I had to guess, I would assume not very strict?
Here’s an interesting NYTimes article on the issue. It’s semi-paywalled and eight years old, but I think it’s still accurate.
Her defence was that she thought she was going into her own apartment, found the door unlocked, thought her apartment had been burglarised, went in and saw an intruder in her own apartment, feared for her safety and shot him.
She was the only one who could put all that in evidence, since she was alone.
Exactly.
If she doesn’t tell that story, then basically all the jury’s got is her in someone else’s apartment with a dead body on the floor and a smoking gun in her hand. That’s generally what legal scholars call “Not a good look.”
Nope, murder.
Second degree, but murder.
If you intentionally pull out a gun, intentionally aim it at a person, and intentionally pull the trigger, wth the aim of hitting the person, that satisfies the “intent to kill” requirement for murder under Canadian law. Wouldn’t be first degree, because no premeditation, but would be murder.
That’s what the Dundas streetcar shooter was charged with. Got convicted on attempt murder, which was upheld by the Court of Appeal and leave dismissed by the SCC.
Um - yeah - that strikes me as awfully weird. Good thing everyone appearing before me today is via video, so I don’t have to worry about hugging them! :rolleyes: Can still advise them as to bible readings, tho! 
That just isn’t true. Murder can be reduced to manslaughter in Canada if provocation immediately precedes the act even if the act was deliberate homicide; s.232 very clearly notes this, and you can find cases in Canada of people intentionally killing other people and getting manslaughter. The example of the Dundas shooter is a terrible one; the reason he was convicted of intended murder is that he was judged to have tried to kill a person intentionally without the provocation that reduces a charge to manslaughter. (There are other factors like intoxication that was make the charge manslaughter even if the perpetrator intended to kill.)
Guyger could have presented the defense of believing Jean was provoking her, thereby making it manslaughter as per S.232. He wasn’t - but that was her state of mind, and if the court generally believed her (as the court in Texas did, hence the ten year sentence) I can see that being the charge that would end up sticking (or just agreed to in a plea deal.) Texas law, however, spreads the word “murder” a lot more widely.
It is interesting to me that Guyger’s defense didn’t make a deal to start with.
There are lots of times a LEO might be justified unholstering. For example, responding to a bank robbery in progress, clearing a burglarized building, felony traffic stop, raiding a stash house, taking a violent suspect into custody, responding to an ongoing shooting incident, searching a barn for an escaped prison inmate. It doesn’t even need to be a person. When I lived in an area with more forest, I’d sometimes hear a request for supervisor permission to destroy a deer that was injured but alive after getting hit by a car.
This article from NBC News talks to the jurors about the deliberations. It took them only five minutes or so to decide on the murder charge, because she herself testified that she was going to kill the threat, before entering the apartment. And they considered a 28 year sentence, but some thought that was too long.
I cannot find a news account with the level of detail I’m looking for–at what point did she think her apartment had been burglarized? Before or after she entered? Before or after she saw Jean?
According to NPR: