Murder Trial Date Set for Former Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger in the Shooting Death of Botham Jean

Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger has a trial date for her role in the shooting death of Botham Jean, an unarmed black man.

NBC 5 reports that court records show Guyger’s trial will begin Aug. 12.

Guyger has been charged with murder in the Sept. 6, 2018 shooting.

Guyger and her attorneys were in court Monday for an “announcement hearing,” the details of which neither side can discuss because the judge in the case has issued a gag order.

Guyger claims that on the day in question, she returned to the apartment complex where she and the victim lived after working a nearly 14-hour shift. She claims to have mistakenly parked on the wrong level of the parking structure, thereby entering the building on the wrong floor and mistaking Jean’s apartment for hers, which was one floor below.

Guyger then claimed that when she was somehow able to open Jean’s apartment door, she believed him to be an intruder in her own apartment, and she shot him after he “failed to comply” with “verbal commands” that she issued.

NBC 5 obtained documents from Dallas police that show the amount of overtime Guyger worked in the months and weeks leading up to the shooting, including the day of the shooting. The station posits that this information may become crucial during the trial.

On the day of the shooting, Guyger requested and worked nearly six hours of overtime. The shooting happened soon after she returned home from that shift. In the days leading up to the shooting, she worked between 1 and four hours of overtime on any given day.

Criminal defense attorney Heath Harris, who is also a former prosecutor, is not associated with the case, but he told NBC 5 that the amount of overtime worked by Guyger will be an important factor for both sides.

“You want an accurate assessment of what her condition was on the night of the shooting. So both sides want it,” Harris said, noting that the information is especially vital for her defense.

“Absolutely, it’s going to help the defense,” Harris said. “If she worked 13 hours that day, that’s going to corroborate that she could’ve possibly been tired and she could have been fatigued to the point where she did make the mistake of going to the wrong apartment.”

Also under scrutiny are the records of any cruises Guyger took between Sept. 23, 2018, and March 4, 2019. A judge ordered her to surrender her passport to her attorney in November 2018 and not leave the state of Texas without the court’s permission.

The prosecution has subpoenaed records from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship company pertaining to those dates, stating the information is “considered material to the state.”