Wrong Apartment Murder Trial Opening Statements:

Texas V. Guyger

The Amber Guyger Murder trial out of Dallas Texas is underway with opening statements, or are they? A big delay in court today while pretrial motions take place. During pretrial motions the no tolerance Judge Tammy Kemp made it clear there will be no disturbances from the gallery with cellphones, laptops, or iPads. Unfortunately sometimes laptop played some noise and the Judge wasn’t happy, she took the laptop away from the person.

Stream the live trial or catch up on video clips of the trial on CourtTV.com

Join our case discussion on Facebook: The Shooting of Botham Jean – Sleuth Syndicate

Judge will sequester the jury for the trial.

Prosecution Opening

Prosecution starts out explaining that Botham was sitting in his living room watching tv while eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream when Guyger entered his apartment. He goes on to explain that the light from the hallway must have lit his apartment up and it must have scared him.

He then goes on and explains that Guyger shot at Botham twice, they don’t know which bullet hit him but one went through the wall and outside, and the other went inside Botham’s chest just above his heart and through various parts of his organs in a downward motion.

He explains that the downward motion of the traveling bullet is important because it shows either Botham was getting up from his chair or he was cowering down. The effect of this bullet was catastrophic. He was alone in his home bleeding to death with his killer.

Before he moves on to dissecting the hours of Amber Guyger’s day he said, In the last 10 minutes of Botham’s life Amber Guyger made a series of unreasonable decisions and choices. He claims that only Ms. Guyger could have stopped this from happening with different decisions and choices.

He starts to explain her day. She is at work by 8:00 am, she usually works from 8-4 but many in her department (CRT) have overtime. On this day they know they will be working overtime assisting SWAT. He goes on to explain how the day unfolded during her work day.

He takes the opportunity of explaining how when they assisted SWAT they had to transport the people arrested. He pointed out that it is the normal process however, it wasn’t what happened when Amber Guyger fatally shot Botham. He explained that Guyger was at the Dallas PD until 7:45 PM that day working. He explained that during the hours from 2-7 she had a pretty lax job just hanging out waiting. After filling out reports Amber was off and going home about 9:30 PM.

He then goes on to tell how when Guyger was leaving her job she sent her work partner a Snap asking “want to touch?” He explained that she and her partner were in a sexual relationship on an on and off basis. He said they started texting about 5:45 that evening until she got home. He then claims that texts were deleted and unable to be recovered. He also claims that they texted about meeting up that night.

At 9:38 she has a 16 minute phone conversation with her partner while she drives home and she pulled over while they were talking. That conversation ends at 9:54 PM and she resumes heading home. He said Amber went home parked on the wrong floor. She backs in a spot on the 4th floor. He explains how the setting of the 4th floor is totally different than the 3rd floor. She heads down two long hallways towards what she thinks is her apartment.

She walks past 16 units and fails to see the apartment number and how they were not 3rd floor numbers. He explains that she misses tons of signs that she was on the wrong floor. He feels she was in lala land due to the phone conversation. She reaches what she thinks is her apartment. She fails to realize the bright red floor mat in front of his door, Amber didn’t have a floor mat.

It seems Botham didn’t lock his door that night. She went against the rules that she was taught as a police officer. She enters the apartment and shot him without noticing the differences in the apartments. She calls 911, he said she said 19 times that she thought she was in her apartment. She was in damage control for herself instead of helping Botham. She was also sending text messages to her partner asking him to come fast. He said within two days she deleted the text messages off her phone.

Defense Opening

Defense starts out explaining they will dissect for days what happened in those fatal moments. He talks about the rush to judgement. He goes on to say Guyger firmly and reasonably believed she was in danger with an intruder in her apartment. He reminds them to focus on the facts and common sense.

He talks about her life growing up touching on adversity in her life and she learned about how police officers were. She was inspired to be a police officer. She went to college to be a police officer. He speaks of her hard work and how she loved to help people. He talks about how she applied to be on the CRT team and what that team does. She gets selected for the team and meets Martin Rivera, the partner she had a sexual relationship with.

He goes on to explain that he needs to explain their relationship even though it has noting to do with that night. He also explains the random hours this team works because of the type of work they do. He talks about how the days leading up to that night the team was working on finding a group of robbers. He said she worked 40 hours from Monday to Thursday that week.

He talks about how she has a hard time sleeping and gets roughly 5 hours of sleep a night. He talks about how she had recently moved in to the apartments. He goes on to talk about how the apartment complex is a confusing place and you park and walk around by memory. He said 93 tenants had parked on the wrong floor while living there. He said 76 of them were on the same floors in question. He said over 38 had gone to the wrong apartments at some point.

That day she didn’t have her dog because she had a maintenance appointment that day. Her dog was at her moms house on this day. He goes on to say that the area was a high crime area that she lived in. She goes to work and begins her day. He explains much of the same that the prosecution explains about the day. He talks about how she had to be on alert during the SWAT activity.

He goes on to claim that she didn’t have plans to meet up with Martin that night and that the prosecution was speculating. He said they were no longer together and they were just flirting. She had moved on and was looking for someone more available to her. He also explains that Martin had never been to her new apartment.

He explains that she left work and went on autopilot heading home. He said she did speak with Martin on the phone about work related stuff. He said she pulled in her parking structure and found a spot right away and she was surprised and happy to have found that spot. He said she backed in the spot and started to head to her apartment.

He said she grabbed all her gear and headed to her apartment, reminds the jury that there are no numbers that are visible like most places. He said they are up and lit up. He talks about how she never made a note of floor mats or any decorations of the apartments around her. He talks about how she’s tired and just heading home and everything is the same. She gets to 1478 and he talks about the door and how it is defective due to not being installed properly.

Botham had just got home from running out and due to the door being broken it didn’t lock. Amber arrives fishing for her keys and notices her door opened as she put her key in which wasn’t the way it should have been. He goes on that she is confused and sees him standing up and thinks he is an intruder. She reacts by confronting him and pulling her weapon expecting him to stop. She thought he was an intruder. He goes on about how it is dark and she has tunnel vision that she had an intruder.

He said she started to yell hands but he was yelling at her and coming at her. She thought he had a weapon thought he was going to kill her and she fires twice. He claims she fully felt she was in her apartment and he was an intruder. He was a little dramatic during this.

He goes on to dispute how he was shot and where he landed isn’t possible the way the prosecution claimed. He said he was too far from the chair to have been in the motion of getting up. He said he was clearly moving towards her when she shot him and she was in fear as in her mind he was a danger. She then starts to sink in that she was not in her apartment. She realizes that she made a mistake and she called 911.

He goes on to talk about how she rushed to get him help by calling 911 and trying to get him help. He said she said she was sorry over and over. He said she was in panic mode and realizing the situation wasn’t what she thought it was and she was trying to process it. He explains that the police had a hard time finding the place because it is a difficult building and that is why she came out to flag down the help.

He explains why she called Martin, he was her rock and she needed him. He said she was devastated by what had just happened.

He goes on to tell the jury that they will hear from Amber, will she testify?

He goes on to tell them when they apply common sense and see that it was self defense they will find her not guilty.