DALLAS _ Jury selection resumes Friday in the murder trial of fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger for killing Botham Jean, an unarmed man who was shot in his apartment last year.
Potential jurors will return to the Frank Crowley Courts Building outside downtown Dallas to be questioned by prosecutors, defense attorneys and the judge about their ability to serve.
The jury must ultimately decide whether it was a crime when Guyger, 31, shot Jean on Sept. 6, 2018. And if it was a crime, was it murder or a lesser crime like manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide? They could also find Guyger not guilty.
"You have to be able to set aside what you've heard and base your verdict off the evidence that you hear in the courtroom," said Russell Wilson, a former Dallas County prosecutor who now works as a defense attorney. "For some people that's not an easy thing to do."
Guyger shot and killed Jean at the South Side Flats apartment building near Dallas police headquarters. She was off-duty but still in uniform when she confused Jean's apartment with her own and mistook him for a burglar, she told investigators. Jean, a 26-year-old accountant from St. Lucia, was shot once.
Testimony is expected to begin Sept. 23, and the trial could last two weeks.
Four thousand jurors were summoned to the courthouse last week to fill out questionnaires about their views and knowledge of the case. About 800 showed up.
Attorneys were expected to spend the last week going through the questionnaires. Some jurors will be eliminated based on their answers. The remainder will report to the courthouse Friday where attorneys will question them.
An unlimited number of jurors can be dismissed "for cause," meaning they say they can't follow the law or set aside any opinions they have about the case.
The defense and the prosecution also have 10 peremptory challenges they can use to dismiss jurors for any reason except race and gender.
"The public, they always think selection is that we get to choose who it is. Selection is really de-selection," Wilson said. "Each side is given 10 strikes, and the people that are left from this pool that we're talking about, become the jury."
State District Judge Tammy Kemp, who is presiding over the trial, hopes to select 12 jurors and four alternates by the end of the day Friday. Usually, only one or two alternates are chosen. Those alternate jurors listen to all the testimony but only deliberate if one of the original 12 jurors can't serve.
Wilson and fellow attorney Brad Lollar, who works in the capital murder unit for the public defender's office, have said that the judge should be able to seat an impartial jury in the case because of Dallas has such a large and diverse population.
But it's still possible the trial could be moved outside the county if enough impartial jurors can't be found. But most such requests are denied.
Guyger's defense attorneys have asked Kemp to move the trial to another county in North Texas. They say she can't receive a fair trial in Dallas because of widespread publicity. Prosecutors objected, and Kemp said she will see whether a jury can be seated before she rules on moving the trial.
Guyger's attorneys wrote in a motion seeking a change of venue that "media hysteria" surrounding the case has been prejudicial. They want court proceedings to be moved to one of six counties: Collin, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Kaufman or Rockwall.
An analysis by The Dallas Morning News found that Guyger probably would face a jury that is whiter and more conservative if her trial were moved to one of those counties.
Exposure to media coverage of Jean's death isn't enough to exclude someone from jury duty, Wilson said. Potential jurors just can't have made up their minds about whether Guyger is guilty.
"If that's the situation they have to be honest about that," Wilson said.
And that's just one of the challenges ahead for this jury. Lollar said it might be difficult for jurors to make a unanimous decision after they begin deliberations.
"It's going to be very difficult for a jury," the public defender said. "I would not at all be surprised if a jury is unable to reach a verdict."
