Man shot, killed by off-duty Dallas police officer who walked into wrong apartment p3

theprestige said:
For me, it came down to a fairly binary question of due process:

If she reasonably believed she was at/in her own apartment (regardless of the provenance of this belief - fatigue, distraction, etc.), then murder could not possibly follow from that belief. That verdict would need some other modifying circumstance, like stopping to identify Jean, and then making an informed decision to shoot him anyway. But stopping to identify an intruder is not required, for defense of one's own home. And since in law the reasonable belief trumps the actual fact, a determination of mistake of fact by the jury must necessarily rule out a verdict of murder.

On the other hand, if it can be established that her belief that she was at/in her own apartment was not reasonable, then a murder verdict becomes pretty much the only option.

Based on the evidence and the arguments at trial, it seemed to me that the legitimacy of her belief was upheld, and a murder verdict should probably be off the table, as a basic matter of rule of law.

So I'm curious if the jury rejected the legitimacy of her belief, or if they accepted the mistake of fact at face value, but decided to call it murder anyway in a form of jury nullification.

And I'm pondering how I'd feel about this outcome, if it turns out that the jury did opt for "nullification" in this case.
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Thermal said:
Betcha a dollar that's what happened.
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I disagree. I think it was not reasonable for her to assume that it was her apartment once she walked in on a man eating ice cream on the couch. It may have been reasonable at some point prior to that, but by then it was no longer reasonable.

Upthread reference was made to accidentally walking into the wrong public bathroom. That is a reasonable mistake to make and one I have made. But, seeing women in what I thought was the men's room shocked me out of my mistake. It did not make me ask them why they were in the men's room.

That is where reasonableness fell apart for me.

I don't think you need jury nullification to get to the right answer on this one. And I'm sort of proud of this jury for getting it right.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
Not sure how that follows. I would have walked in to the deliberations convinced of her guilt of murder but also convinced she deserved a light-ish sentence. And that is still true despite the fact that I heard things during the trial, her narcissistic worries after the shooting, that made me favor a "less light" sentence.
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You could be right. I don't know the mindset of the jury, either as individuals or as a whole. I was thinking along the lines of them being so certain that it was flat out murder that there were no niggling mitigating circumstances which would make them doubt guilt as well as lessen the severity. But like I said, mine was just a guess. Would be interesting if they came back with an insanely lenient sentence for some reason. And not interesting in a good way.
 
Rolfe said:
What is jury nullification, please?
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It means that the jury is convinced that the law is wrong and lets someone off despite them having actually broken the law.

"theprestige" is suggesting something similar, that they convicted despite her not having broken the law.
 
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Rolfe said:
What is jury nullification, please?
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Jury's in the US may decide to rule in a way that is inconsistent with the facts and law and there is no way for a judge or appeals process to correct for that. It is typically done as a form of protest against laws that are not popular and thus they are nullifying that law. It is not illegal for a jury to do so, but in some jurisdictions it may be illegal to tell a jury that they have this power.

Apparently it is known as perverse verdict in your neck of the woods.
 
Thermal said:
Betcha a dollar that's what happened.
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As previously noted, mistake of fact gets her to the door. After that, she made multiple bad choices. The jury obviously didn't accept that it was reasonable for her to believe that she was in immediate mortal danger, even if someone was in "her" apartment.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Jury's in the US may decide to rule in a way that is inconsistent with the facts and law and there is no way for a judge or appeals process to correct for that. It is typically done as a form of protest against laws that are not popular and thus they are nullifying that law. It is not illegal for a jury to do so, but in some jurisdictions it may be illegal to tell a jury that they have this power.

Apparently it is known as perverse verdict in your neck of the woods.
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But jury nullification always refers to a jury letting someone off even when the evidence points to guilt. But it doesn't work the other way: If a jury convicts someone, they have concluded that the prosecution proved its case. They don't say "We think he's innocent, but we'll convict him just for fun."
 
Dr. Keith said:
I disagree. I think it was not reasonable for her to assume that it was her apartment once she walked in on a man eating ice cream on the couch. It may have been reasonable at some point prior to that, but by then it was no longer reasonable.

Upthread reference was made to accidentally walking into the wrong public bathroom. That is a reasonable mistake to make and one I have made. But, seeing women in what I thought was the men's room shocked me out of my mistake. It did not make me ask them why they were in the men's room.

That is where reasonableness fell apart for me.

I don't think you need jury nullification to get to the right answer on this one. And I'm sort of proud of this jury for getting it right.
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Have to agree. Guyger made a mistake of fact, but the jury didn't find it reasonable. Probably because it was a direct result of her fairly careless actions leading up to the shooting.

I don't think there is any requirement for the jury to isolate the "reasonableness" question to the exact moments of the shooting. Her carelessness that lead her to the door is relevant as to whether the mistake of fact is reasonable, as well as her decision to draw and fire so quickly.

In totality, the entire mistake was not reasonable. A prudent person would not have done many of the things Guyger did and Jean would still be alive. Good for the jury.
 
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Dr. Keith said:
I disagree. I think it was not reasonable for her to assume that it was her apartment once she walked in on a man eating ice cream on the couch. It may have been reasonable at some point prior to that, but by then it was no longer reasonable.
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Agreed, if you saw a man eating ice cream, it should give you pause. But if you only saw the dark silhouette of a large man, defensive reactions could take over.

And I sympathize up to that point, and that seems to be where '**** 'em, you can clean kill in Texas now' precedent takes over, and I have the most grievous objections to that. The jury was not asked to consider whether lethal force was justified, if I am reading it correctly. That seems to be taken as a given if the mistake element was accepted.

Upthread reference was made to accidentally walking into the wrong public bathroom. That is a reasonable mistake to make and one I have made. But, seeing women in what I thought was the men's room shocked me out of my mistake. It did not make me ask them why they were in the men's room.

That is where reasonableness fell apart for me.

I don't think you need jury nullification to get to the right answer on this one. And I'm sort of proud of this jury for getting it right.
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I'm proud that justice has been served on a silver platter. Only distantly concerned with how they got the platter.
 
Thermal said:
I'm proud that justice has been served on a silver platter. Only distantly concerned with how they got the platter.
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Which, in the jury instructions, was not relevant. They stated that it doesn't matter how they come to the conclusion, just that the conclusion is the same for everyone.

She murdered someone and I'm glad she got what was coming to her.
 
Joe Random said:
The bit that's stuck with me from the beginning of this case is that even if she actually had gone to her apartment and came upon someone inside there are legitimate possibilities other than intruder (emergency maintenance being the main one). If she'd taken the time to properly assess the circumstances and threat level she should have seen a) not a threat and b) she's in the wrong place. So for me even if the belief that she'd gone to her apartment was a reasonable one, the shooting which followed wasn't justified.
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And it is precisely for that reason that I (and I suspect many others) have been seriously concerned about what sort of precedent a "Not Guilty" verdict would have set for the use of force and accountability in policing. And am still concerned about if the sentence should be too lenient.
 
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plague311 said:
Which, in the jury instructions, was not relevant. They stated that it doesn't matter how they come to the conclusion, just that the conclusion is the same for everyone.

She murdered someone and I'm glad she got what was coming to her.
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There's still a long process ahead. Let's see if she's out on bail during her appeals.
 
Slight digression: What's the difference between a sentence of 99 years and "life?" Seriously. Does one allow an earlier parole hearing than the other? Does it change the conditions of incarceration? Is one more likely to be commuted than the other? Etc.
 
Joe Random said:
The bit that's stuck with me from the beginning of this case is that even if she actually had gone to her apartment and came upon someone inside there are legitimate possibilities other than intruder (emergency maintenance being the main one). If she'd taken the time to properly assess the circumstances and threat level she should have seen a) not a threat and b) she's in the wrong place. So for me even if the belief that she'd gone to her apartment was a reasonable one, the shooting which followed wasn't justified.
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As I understand it, this is purely a question of what the law prescribes. And as I understand what the law prescribes, if she reasonably believed she was in her apartment, then the law does not require any further due diligence, and cannot properly hold her responsible for not doing any further diligence before shooting.

And while my sense of justice does not begin nor end with the law, I think that upholding the law as written is important to getting justice, and should not be lightly set aside even in cases of life and death.

On the highlighted above, if the belief that she was at her apartment had been found to have been reasonable would you say that all charges should have been off the table, or just the murder 1 ?
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I don't have an answer for that.
 
Bob001 said:
As previously noted, mistake of fact gets her to the door. After that, she made multiple bad choices.
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As previously opined, you mean. The case has shown that all the jury needed was to accept that it was reasonable for her to get to the door, and believe that Jean was an intruder. The second follows from the first, assuming she could only see his silhouette in the dark and could not discern enough other detail with her focus on his outline.

The jury obviously didn't accept that it was reasonable for her to believe that she was in immediate mortal danger, even if someone was in "her" apartment.
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Or they did accept it, but gave a hellz no to this kind of travesty via nullification.
 
wasapi said:
YES!!! An appropriate verdict.

When will her sentence be announced? What and how long is she facing in prison?
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I must say this is a pleasant surprise. Sobbing (likely bleached) blonde white female cop shoots and kills a black male? That's usually a guarantee of a Not Guilty verdict, regardless of circumstances.
 
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