The former Dallas police officer who killed Botham Jean in his own apartment is appealing her murder conviction

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trenchfoot

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
14,939
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So then the biggest mistake she made was to rely on the rote reflexive training she had at the academy: "in any unexpected situation go for your gun and hope for the worst".
 

MtnMan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2004
8,960
8,195
136
What, not the "he was black" and my training, and job culture as a cop has taught me to kill them before they can kill me, as a defense? That's probably closer to the truth.

If this BS were to be successful, she would probably try to get her job back, with back pay of course.
 
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JEDIYoda

Lifer
Jul 13, 2005
33,986
3,320
126
What, not the "he was black" and my training, and job culture as a cop has taught me to kill them before they can kill me, as a defense? That's probably closer to the truth.

If this BS were to be successful, she would probably try to get her job back, with back pay of course.
WHO SAYS SHE WONT??
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
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Appeals of murder convictions are routine. Almost all of them are appealed.

As I said further up thread, this particular ground for appeal is disfavored by the courts. She has little to no chance of prevailing.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
136
Gotta respect your hopefulness and naïveté.

I really don't think that years of experience in this area can be equated with "hopefulness and naïveté."

Appeals in criminal cases only rarely result in reversal. Less so for murder cases. Less still when the appeal is based on "the jury got it wrong" rather than legal errors made by the judge.

Her appeal will fail. You'll see.
 

Meghan54

Lifer
Oct 18, 2009
11,684
5,222
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I really don't think that years of experience in this area can be equated with "hopefulness and naïveté."

Appeals in criminal cases only rarely result in reversal. Less so for murder cases. Less still when the appeal is based on "the jury got it wrong" rather than legal errors made by the judge.

Her appeal will fail. You'll see.

I was trying to be, in part, a tad facetious...guessed I missed. But remember, this is Texas. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
 
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SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,221
4,452
136
I was trying to be, in part, a tad facetious...guessed I missed. But remember, this is Texas. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
While I agree with Woolfe, this appeal really has no chance, it would not really surprise me if they found some appeal that does. During the whole case there was the feel that the DA was waiting for the media coverage to end so they could quietly make the charges go away.
 

Viper1j

Diamond Member
Jul 31, 2018
4,264
3,840
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Technically, she has another "bite at the apple" here. She can argue insufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. However, as a practical matter, of all the grounds for appeal, this kind of appeal is least likely to succeed.

Most appeals involve allegations of error on the part of the judge. Error in admitting or not admitting certain evidence. Error in instructing the jury. Those kinds of arguments can win, if there really was an error, and if the error(s) were prejudicial to the defendant.

But this kind of appeal just says that the jury got the verdict wrong. Appeals courts give great deference to jury verdicts. They are virtually never overturned based on insufficiency of the evidence. That kind of appeal is generally a hail mary.

I see no allegation of judicial error here, or of ineffective assistance of counsel, or prosecutorial misconduct. Accordingly, I give her at best a 5% chance of prevailing here. Probably more like 1%.

You left out one factor. The timing couldn't be worse. She's going for this type of appeal against a backdrop of George Floyd, Willie McCoy, Andre Maurice Hill , Breonna Taylor and too many too list.

She killed a man for the crime of eating ice cream in his own damn house.

I'm not even sure a jury of Klansmen, would want that kind of heat.

It "shouldn't" matter, but the societal environment will always be a factor.
 

Linux23

Lifer
Apr 9, 2000
11,333
705
126
Well, I don't know about you people, but as a black man, I can't wait to get shot dead in my own house eating ice cream and watching Real Housewives of Bel Air.

Fuk, my door is unlocked right now.